Abolished Now, but Heres How the Handloom Board Transformed Weavers Lives – The Better India

The Union Ministry of Textile released two separate notifications on July 27 and August 3 to announce the abolition of the All India Handicraft Board and All India Handloom Board (AIHB).

OAs India celebrates the National Handloom Day on August 7 2020, this will be the first time it does so without the All India Handloom Board.

The Union Ministry of Textile released two separate notifications on July 27 and August 3 to announce the abolition of the All India Handicraft Board and All India Handloom Board (AIHB). According to the statement, the decision has been taken in consonance with the Government of Indias vision of Minimum Government and Maximum Governance.

However, experts feel that the board which comprises official members from the central and state governments, and non-official members from the handloom industry, played a vital role in safeguarding the interest of weavers, and Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs).

Laila Tyabji, the founder of Delhi-based NGO Dastkar, took to social media to express her concern over the dissolution of the board.

In her post, she mentions that the AIHB remained the one official forum, where the voices and views of weavers and craftspeople could be heard directly. She says that was the one place where representatives of the sector were present in considerable numbers and were empowered to advise the government in policy-making, and sectoral spending.

The All India Handloom Board was set up in 1992, to advise the Government in the formulation of overall development programs in the handloom sector. It was also responsible for advising the Government on how to make handlooms an effective instrument for reducing unemployment and underemployment, and how to achieve higher living standards for weavers.

Umang Sridhar, the founder of Bhopal-based social enterprise, KhaDigi, that works with several weavers and artisans in Madhya Pradesh, says that the state-level representatives of AIHB were actively involved in organising melas, fairs, and exhibitions to showcase and market their work.

The Board also formulated the development and welfare schemes of handloom weavers from time to time.

Some of the welfare schemes introduced by the AIHB include:

1.The Handloom Weavers Comprehensive Welfare Scheme

Launched in 2018, all weavers and workers between the ages of 18 50 were covered under the Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana (PMJJBY) and Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana (PMSBY). As part of the same scheme, a maximum of two children of the weavers would be given an annual scholarship for their education.

According to a study conducted between 2008-09, the Govt. of India spent an amount of Rs.324.44 crore for the development of the handloom sector. This expenditure has increased to Rs.740.72 crore in 2012-13, after it declined to Rs.577.25 crore in 2013-14.

2. National Handloom Development Programme (NHDP)

This scheme focussed on the education of handloom weavers and their children. Ministry of Textiles provides reimbursement of 75% of the fee towards admission to the National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS) and Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU)courses for SC, ST, BPL, and Women learners belonging to handloom weavers families.

A study conducted in 2015, among 146 weavers in Madhya Pradesh shows that 9/10th of the population was found to be benefiting from training programs in weaving, dyeing and design were able to increase their annual earnings by 5% to 15%.

3. Handloom Marketing Assistance

One of the components of the NHDP, this aims to provide a marketing platform to the handloom agencies and weavers to sell their products directly to the consumers. Financial assistance is provided to the eligible handloom agencies for organising marketing events in domestic as well as overseas markets.

4. Weaver MUDRA Scheme:

Under the Weavers Mudra Scheme, credit at a concessional interest rate of 6% is provided to the handloom weavers. Margin money assistance to a maximum of Rs.10,000 per weaver and credit guarantee for 3 years is also provided. The MUDRA portal has been developed in association with Punjab National Bank to cut down delay in disbursement of funds for margin money.

Under this scheme, the total number of cards issued during the year 2015-2016 was at 5.17 lakh, and an amount of Rs 1476.96 crore. The same study shows that Rs.1391.25 cr was withdrawn by micro and small business.

5. Yarn Supply Scheme

Under this scheme Yarn warehouses were set up in handloom dense areas, and yarn was provided to weavers at a 10% subsidy. In 2015, the same study conducted among 146 weavers in Madhya Pradesh showed that 98% were happy with the scheme as they got all kinds of yarn at mill gate price.

Umang says that the decision taken by the government came as a surprise to everyone and that most artisans are still unaware of it.

The role of the board has been crucial in offering subsidies, grants, and in setting up showrooms in several areas which generated sales, marketing, and training opportunities. The board was also actively involved in organising melas, fairs, and exhibitions to uplift the artisans. Now that the board is not there, there is no clarity as to what would happen to the state-level associations, and who will organise these events in the future. There are talks that a central body may be set up to regulate handlooms and handicrafts, but that is not certain.

(Edited by Gayatri Mishra)

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Abolished Now, but Heres How the Handloom Board Transformed Weavers Lives - The Better India

British Abolitionists Against the Slave Trade – The Great Courses Daily News

By Vejas Liulevicius, Ph.D., University of TennesseeThough slavery itself was banned in Britain, the slave trade conducted by the British still carried on. The abolitionist campaigned to stop it. (Image: Franois-Auguste Biard/Public Domain)The Enlightenment and Slavery

The Enlightenment criticized many ancient institutions, including slavery. But Enlightenment criticism had not been consistent. The English philosopher John Locke, for instance, wrote powerfully about inalienable natural rights, and voluntarily social contracts, but he also was an investor in the Royal African Company.

But many thinkers did speak out against slavery along Enlightenment lines. DiderotsEncyclopdie condemned slavery as a violation of natural law, and it said that if slavery was not a crime, then anything at all could be justified. The British Enlightenment economist Adam Smith saw slavery as less efficient, less profitable than free labor and free trade. The AmericanBenjamin Franklin, also an Enlightenment thinker, was also an abolitionist.

Learn more about the British slavery abolition act.

It was, however, religion that produced the beginnings of a truly mass mobilization against slavery. In particular, this involved the Quakers, or the Religious Society of Friends as they called themselves.

The Quakers saw a fundamental equality in all people because of the immediate relationship that each could have with the Divine, in a priesthood of all believers. Thus the Quakers, both in England and in the American colonies, spoke out against slavery.

As early as 1688, Quakers in Germantown, Pennsylvania, condemned slavery and the slave trade. By the 1760s, Quakers in Britain and in America were refusing to accept slave traders into their own faith communities. In Philadelphia in 1775, Quakers founded the worlds first antislavery society.

Around the same time in England Quakers began to cooperate with Evangelicals, with Methodists, and with Baptists, to together work against the slave trade. In 1772, a legal case in Britain had prohibited slavery in the British Isles, but these activists were not content and had a global outlook.

The pioneers of this movement included Thomas Clarkson, a tireless organizer; the politician William Wilberforce in Parliament; and the African Olaudah Equiano, a former slave who had bought his freedom and had published a searing autobiography about his experiences.

The first meetings of this group, which called itself The Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade, took place 1787. This group decided to concentrate first on the slave trade, rather than working on banning all slavery at once.

Slavery itself seemed to these activists too socially and economically entrenched to be overthrown all at once, so their hope was that by ending the trade, this would lead to the gradual extinction of the practice as a whole.

Learn more about how settlements achieved success with tobacco and the forced recruitment of African slaves.

The key organizer, Thomas Clarkson, had won an essay prize at University of Cambridge on the question of whether slavery was lawful. This had been just a rhetorical exercise, but when hed written his essay, he became obsessed with this question. His friends called him a moral steam engine, and he travelled the country, collecting information on the slave trade.

The movements political voice was William Wilberforce, a man with a matchless, compelling voice and rhetoric. He was a real political insider who had converted to the Evangelical faith and now advanced the legal cause of abolition in Parliament.

There was also an unlikely recruit to the movement: a former slave captain, John Newton, who after four slave voyages had experienced a religious change of heart, and became a minister, and then a famous preacher. In 1772, it was Newton who wrote Amazing Grace, a hymn which praises the power of repentance.

This is a transcript from the video series Turning Points in Modern History. Watch it now, on The Great Courses Plus.

This movement was itself very businesslike, efficient, and innovative in its tactics. Activists worked to gather the dreadful facts of the slave trade, and let those facts speak for themselves.

They printed masses of pamphlets in many languages, to convince an international audience. In France, the marquis de Lafayette, helped start a society there for the same aims, named the Society of the Friends of the Blacks.

One activist was the manufacturer of china, Josiah Wedgwood, who became official potter to the Queen. For the cause, Wedgwood used his talents to create an image for a medallion that became an icon. It showed a kneeling African in chains, asking the question, Am I not a man and a brother?

This image was soon everywhereon pottery, on bracelets, on hairpins, on cufflinks, on snuffboxes. Benjamin Franklin actually praised this image as equal to the best pamphlet in the world in terms of changing minds.

Another key winning tactic was using the role of women. Women spoke up in public meetings on the topic, which was unusual at the time. Women were also key activists in huge petitions that were organized to appeal to Parliament.

The act of signing a petition was, in a subtle way, very democratizing. People were urged to sign up regardless of what their class was, regardless of whether they were men or women, and regardless of whether they currently had the right to vote or not.

Women also organized the powerful boycott of West Indian sugar from 1791, to protest the slave origins of this commodity, the largest British import. Its estimated that in Britain, half a million people took part, and women, as the organizers of their households, are the ones who made it happen.

All these activities created tremendous pressure on the British government to stop the slave trade.

The Quakers believed that every person had an individual connection to the Divine, and so slavery was seen as immoral and unethical.

The British abolitionists decided that slavery was too big an issue to be fought successfully. So, they canvassed for the end of the slave trade which, they felt, would soon end slavery itself.

Josiah Wedgwood designed and popularized an image of a kneeling African slave with the words Am I not a man and a brother? The image became an icon for the abolition movement in Britain.

British women were key activists in abolitionist petitions that were organized to appeal to Parliament. Women also organized the powerful boycott of West Indian sugar from 1791, to protest its slave origins.

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British Abolitionists Against the Slave Trade - The Great Courses Daily News

As the COVID-19 lockdown ends, what world awaits people? – The Globe and Mail

Shadows are seen near graffiti as demonstrators fill an intersection during protests on July 26, 2020 in Seattle, Washington.

David Ryder/Getty Images

Tessa McWatt is a professor of creative writing at University of East Anglia. Her most recent book is Shame on Me: An Anatomy of Race and Belonging.

You dont like the rain. Caribbean people, even in Canada, huddle inside at darkening skies, bracing for a hurricane. But the sound of rain here in London has started to perk me up. I get hopeful when people rush back into their homes, emptying the streets, the parks, the stoops where they have congregated over the past few months. I get to pretend were in lockdown again.

When I call you in Toronto, as I have done every day since the beginning of the pandemic, to commiserate and laugh, both of us lonely and agitated, you assure me you have your mask on. Not understanding the rules, but not wanting to worry your daughter, you continue through the gauze and say, Things are opening up here, and my heart sinks.

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I miss lockdown.

Of course I dont miss the illness, which I and many friends had, from which far too many have died, while politicians balance capital against lives, making them equivalent. I dont miss the fact that you, at 86 and on your own, have gone without being touched for more than 100 days, your memory looping tighter and tighter in the confines of your tiny house. I dont miss imagining the quarantine of those who lived in two rooms with an entire extended family, the women who quarantined with their abusers, the suffering of those without an income, or those who were forced to work because the economy had to keep running. I dont miss the news reports with faces of the Black and brown health care workers dying disproportionally, the bus drivers, the Uber drivers who didnt have the luxury of both a paycheque and isolation.

Protestors march during an anti-racism march on June 6, 2020 in Toronto.

Cole Burston/Getty Images North America

But COVID-19 is a truth-sayer. Truths previously silenced beneath the din of so-called productivity have been spooled out over the internet: A white policeman kneels on the neck of a Black man in the same week that a white woman calls the cops on a Black birdwatcher. Police drive a car through crowds of Black Lives Matter protesters. Elon Musk calls the coronavirus a cold and sends his workers back to the Tesla factory. Hawksbill turtles breed in record numbers on the now tourist-free beaches of Thailand. Arctic fires emit 60 million tonnes of carbon dioxide in one month, and the region is heating twice as fast as the rest of the planet, leading to sea ice melting faster than scientists have previously predicted. All the homeless people in London are taken off the street and given only temporary shelter.

These events are not unrelated.

As you know, mom, in my memoirs on race and belonging, I dissected the persistent racism and inequality we live in. I flayed a system born out of the scientific racism that was developed to serve the greed of capitalism. I traced the plantation economics that made you, made me. COVID-19 has confirmed that the plantation structure still governs, that some people are treated as chattel, put in cages, in ghettos, behind walls, behind bars.

Peaceful protesters march on June 25, 2020, in downtown Salt Lake City, in the latest protest decrying the death of Bernardo Palacios-Carbajal, who was shot and killed by police in May.

Rick Bowmer/The Associated Press

The profit motive requires producers to expand the reach of goods, producing cheap things at the cheapest rate, based on the cheapest labour. Cheap clothes, so we all look the same. The same but not equal. Cheap food, cheap energy, cheap care, cheap technology, cheap pharmaceuticals. The product itself does not define the plantation. It is defined by its structure and the labour done by the people upon which its cheap products rely without care or duty to the people who make them, with blind extraction from the bounty of the earth, until we go too far. Weve gone too far.

As the COVID-19 lockdown ends, what world awaits on the other side?

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Will we return to a state of mind that says theres not enough for us all that state of mind that doesnt put each other and the planet first? Will we open up to a world that seems to perpetually choose disrespect for nature, racism, extremist nationalism, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, misogyny, homophobia and many other forms of hatred?

The scaffolding of how we live has been duly exposed. Why would we go back?

People take a knee in support of the Black Lives Matter movement outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington on June 18, 2020.

JONATHAN ERNST/Reuters

A recent essay by Dionne Brand nails it: Was the violence against women normal? Was the anti-Black and anti-Indigenous racism normal? Was white supremacy normal? Was the homelessness growing on the streets normal? Were homophobia and transphobia normal? Were pervasive surveillance and policing of Black and Indigenous and people of colour normal?

I refuse to get back to normal. I want off the plantation. But to where? The despicable loss of life, loss of biodiversity due to human extraction, plundering, poaching, continues everywhere. What is this space to which I might escape? It cannot be only literary, with more demand for reading lists and right thinking; it cannot be only virtual, with angry tweets and a verbal war. Because the revolution cannot only be televised.

I hope things dont get worse, you say, and I know youre thinking of the virus and not of all the worse Im imagining. Your hope is such a fundamental part of who you are, mom. Perhaps its a hope that the pause in the machinery of normal might reap something new.

It surprised me how many puppies were bought or rescued during lockdown. What a paradox to want to bring something so vulnerable into such a violent world. But I think I understand this now that hope has nothing to do with optimism. It can be brutal and paradoxical. It can even be violent.

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A worker exits a Tesla Model 3 electric vehicle at Tesla's primary vehicle factory after CEO Elon Musk announced he was defying local officials' COVID-19 restrictions by reopening the plant in Fremont, California, U.S. May 11, 2020.

STEPHEN LAM/Reuters

The hope that Im speaking of is not about asking for more inclusion into a system that is already broken, but rather about replacing it. Its a hope that we align our responsibility to ourselves with our responsibility to others. And its time for us all to engage in radical, mutual care to repair our relations with each other and the planet. As Angela Davis has said, You have to act as if it were possible to radically transform the world. And you have to do it all the time.

In our dispossession and our rage, we can ask revolutionary questions. We have powerful tools language and imagination with which to reinvent realities. Everywhere, every day, there is invention, and there are new organizations that form to address structural change, to make a model for how to live differently, off the plantation. These are networks of locals, working in their own communities, but with common causes that are global. Challenging current systems, there are networks of Black activists; climate crisis groups in action-oriented disobedience; groups opposing fracking, opposing pipelines that invade Indigenous land; opposing corporate buy-outs; opposing the destruction of the ocean.

A guide walks along a winding channel carved by rushing water on the surface of the melting Longyearbreen glacier during a summer heat wave on Svalbard archipelago on July 31, 2020 near Longyearbyen, Norway.

Sean Gallup/Getty Images

La Via Compesina is a coalition of organizations in more than 80 countries that advocates family-farm-based sustainable agriculture for food sovereignty. The Wretched of the Earth is a grassroots collective for Indigenous, Black and brown and diaspora groups and individuals demanding climate justice and acting in solidarity with communities in North America, Britain and the global south, where migrants are escaping climate disasters. Torontos Activist Calendar is packed with events and news of small and large victories. Black Lives Matter, Bridges Not Walls, Queer Solidarity Smashes Borders, Unite Against Islamophobia: the placards on protests across Europe and North America say everything about how organizing is the only way forward. These small groups will need to join up to dismantle the current structure.

Because normal is toxic. Surely normal is also a failure of imagination.

In my book, I had to resort to my imagination to picture your Chinese grandmother with her bound feet and my African great-great-grandmother enslaved in Demerara, but in imagining them I brought a whole new dimension to myself. I opened up to my own body. Its this opening up that I think must happen now. Imagining what will allow us to be bigger than our bodies, to be greater than the sum of our parts. Opening up to new, physical, safe spaces for all of us who have been terrified in the street. To citizens assemblies, to universal basic income, to settled land claims, to abolition of state systems of oppression, to defunding the police, to guaranteeing and fully funding education and health care, to creating urban farms, to the end of fossil fuels and the beginning of new ways of participating with our environment. To balance. To peace.

To a postviral reconstruction that has nothing normal about it.

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In this file photo taken on Nov. 8, 2019 a homeless man sleeps in central London. Thousands of homeless people in Britain were given hotel rooms to protect them from coronavirus but as the outbreak slows, charities fear they could soon be back on the streets.

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As the COVID-19 lockdown ends, what world awaits people? - The Globe and Mail

Milk Sharing – What Milk-Sharing Communities Reveal – SAPIENS

Heather Wascak was devastated. In 2014, within days of giving birth to a baby girl, Lucia, she was aching to be with her child.

Shes almost 5 days old, and I still havent gotten to hold her, Wascak wrote in a Facebook post. In fact, Ive only gotten about 10 minutes with her. Anyone who knows me knows that this was 100 percent not my birth plan.

Wascak had wanted an intimate home birth with a midwife, as shed had with her first child. Instead, shed needed to have a cesarean section. Wascak was fighting a rare fallopian tube cancer. And even though she was desperate to breastfeed her baby, initially she couldnt, in part because doctors transferred Lucia, who was having difficulty breathing, to another hospital.

Committed to giving her child breast milk, Wascak turned to other women who were breastfeeding and willing to share. A local breastfeeding group in Buffalo, New York, stepped up to support her, as did donors she had never met, who connected through online networking after reading her Facebook posts. Wascak recorded her thanks online: So many mamas have reached out and offered their breast milk for Lucia. I cant put into words how grateful I am for that.

Wascaks story is one of many collected by Aunchalee Palmquist, a medical anthropologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Such stories, Palmquist believes, may challenge peoples assumptions about women sharing their milk, a practice that has raised concerns among medical professionals.

These sharing groups are organized informally, most often without unified guidelines or medical supervision. Doctors have many fears about the practice, not least of all because milk can potentially carry pathogens, including human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).

Heather Wascak (center) holds her baby, Lucia, at a 2015 picnic organized by a milk-sharing group in which she participated. Aunchalee Palmquist/Anthrolactology blog

Nonetheless, an increasing number of women in the United States and around the world are sharing milk informally with other mothers. Its definitely a phenomenon among at least American women, says Melanie Martin, an anthropologist at the University of Washington, Seattle, and understanding it is part of a whole history of human milk sharing and cooperative breeding.

Some of this movement reflects a slow shift from formula back to breastfeeding in many societies. Over the last four decades, medical professionals have recognized the irreplaceable health benefits of breast milk and recommended that infants consume only breast milk (rather than formula or occasional solids) until 6 months of age. As demand for breast milk grows, peer-to-peer milk-sharing networks have flourished, as have nonprofits that bank human milk (analogous to community blood banks) and commercial efforts to capitalize on breast milks purported health benefits.

Anthropologists such as Palmquist and Martin feel theres a lot for researchers to learn from these trends, particularly the peer networks. Health risks may exist, they argue, but medical personnel need to become more involved in connecting women to solutions, rather than just rejecting the practice.

In the meantime, the trend provides insights into the complex rules that cultures construct around maternal behavior. For me as an anthropologist, Palmquist says, studying milk sharing opens up windows on racism, gender identity, having a baby, community, and what it means to be a parent.

Medical practitioners, biologists, and public health specialists have identified a slew of benefits to infants who breastfeed, including immune system protection and fewer ear infections. Women who breastfeed have a lower risk for breast and ovarian cancers. And breastfeeding facilitates psychological bonding between mother and child.

Partly because of such research, in 2002, the World Health Organization began promoting exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months of a babys life. In addition to breast milks benefits, the WHO recognizes that formula requires clean water and a certain level of sanitation, conditions that are not available in every community.

Marketing in the 20th century often implied that baby formula was superior to breastfeeding. Floortje/Getty Images

That 2002 guidance was a sign of how powerfully new findings have shifted opinion in recent years. In the early 20th century, the medical establishment accepted formula as scientifically safe. Aggressive marketing campaigns made it sound superior to breastfeeding. In addition, formula offered a shelf-stable option for feeding infants in a variety of circumstances. It was the first choice for infants in intensive care units in many U.S. hospitals until recently.

Even as researchers have enhanced manufactured options, the limits of these products become increasingly clear. Breast milks composition is complex and dynamic; it changes throughout breastfeeding and a babys growth, which makes it difficult for formula companies to mimic.

Still, the return to breast milk has had complicated consequences. Under the discourse of breast is best, says Beatriz Reyes-Foster, a sociocultural anthropologist at the University of Central Florida, failing to breastfeed means your body is failing you, [and] you are failing as a mother.

Mothers whose milk does not come in, for instance, may feel shamed for their inability to provide breast milk. Meanwhile super producers, who are able to provide an abundance of milk, want to help others.

The best-established system for sharing extra milk is via milk banks, many of which operate as nonprofit organizations to serve their local communities. A scattering of these groups existed in the U.S. in the 1970s. In the 1980s, the threat of HIV, which can be passed in mothers milk, led most of these efforts to shut down until after researchers found that pasteurization killed the virus. Today milk bank guidelines specify that these nonprofits pasteurize all milk.

Their donations go to babies most in need: predominantly infants in neonatal intensive care units (NICUs), whose survival may be pinned to breast milk. The Human Milk Banking Association of North America (HMBANA), which considers donor milk a medicine for premature babies, reported that in 2019, its members distributed nearly 5.85 million ounces of milk to NICUs and 1.5 million ounces to babies at home, donated by 12,491 volunteers.

Milk banks are safe sources of breast milk, but they cant meet the demands of all mothers and babies.

The banks are safe sources of breast milk, but they cant always meet the demands of all mothers and babies. That limitation, anthropologists have found, is at least one reason why women seek other solutions.

From an evolutionary viewpoint, milk sharing is a very old human practice. In the late 1990s, Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, emeritus professor of anthropology at the University of California, Davis, drew upon data and observations across primates to study allomaternal care, that is, mothers helping tend one anothers children. In some cases, she found, mothers share nursing as well.

This research made two things clear. First, humans evolved to be cooperative breeders, meaning that all parents need help raising and feeding their children.

Second, the rules surrounding this behavior can be complex. Even among our primate cousins such as capuchins and other monkeys, the offspring of others are sometimes welcomed and sometimes rebuffed.

Humans are just as varied in their behaviors, practicing milk sharing in different ways across societies. For instance, infants of the Aka hunter-gatherers living in the Congo Basin may have spent nearly a quarter of their time nursing with another mother. Meanwhile, other hunter-gatherer groups, such as the !Kung of Botswana and Namibia, do not share milk.

Looking at what we see in extant hunter-gatherers today, we see variation, and we would expect that variation in the past, says Martin, who has studied breastfeeding practices in the Bolivian Amazon and elsewhere.

That diversity means that various cultures specify distinct norms or rules of behavior for motherhood. Even before women worried about how their society viewed breast milk versus formula, mothers were making choices about breastfeeding informed by these community norms.

In some Muslim communities, for example, sharing the same womans milk makes children kin, even if they are not otherwise tied by blood. That fact adds a layer of complication to establishing milk banks in certain countries.

Mary Miller, a certified lactation consultant, has organized milk-sharing groups in upstate New York. Courtesy of Mary Miller

Historically, in many countries, a woman who fed anothers child was a wet nurse, often a servant or slave. In 18th-century France, Hrdys work reveals, wealthy families recruited poor women as wet nurses. Impoverished mothers earned money for their family but could not be with their own children, often leaving sons and daughters in foundling homes. Meanwhile, some wealthy urban families sent their newborns to live in a wet nurses home in the countryside, separating mother and child from birth.

These histories cast long shadows. In 2017, historians Emily West and R.J. Knight at the University of Reading noted that the experiences of enslaved Black women who were forced to serve as wet nurses to White families in the southern United States before the abolition of slavery may contribute to lower rates of breastfeeding in African American communities today.

The movement to share milk peer-to-peer in the United States, however, differs from these stories of exploitation, in part because of its focus on building community. What might historically have been considered inherently unequalwet-nursingbecomes something else among peers.

Mary Miller started the breastfeeding group in Buffalo that Wascak joined years ago. We had the best friendship ever, Miller recalls.

The two tag-teamed to care for each others kids and cross-nursed their children. Miller, a former social worker, eventually helped with Wascaks cancer therapies and end-of-life care.

Miller loves Lucia, Wascaks daughter, and notes that cross-feeding often makes women feel connected to others childrenperhaps because breastfeeding releases the hormone oxytocin, which promotes bonding. People feel uncomfortable with cross-nursing, Miller acknowledges, but it creates a special bond with a child.

Now an international board-certified lactation consultant, Miller has helped thousands of women donate and receive breast milk. The participants in her groups are predominantly, though not exclusively, White. They tend to have at least high school diplomas; many have bachelors degrees, and some have higher levels of education.

Medical researchers have uncovered a plethora of benefits related to breastfeeding, including immune system protection for infants.

Jose Luis Pelaez Inc/Getty Images

The groups are socioeconomically diverse. Some women receive food stamps but share milk they can spare. Wealthier participants sometimes anonymously support others in the group, perhaps donating a car seat. They communicate online and meet in person.

Finding one another through social media is a common pattern in these groups, anthropologists have discovered. It shows how the internet has allowed women to find supportive networks when society has disrupted our efforts to find supportive kin and community, Martin says.

Across the United States, women from varied backgroundsin terms of socioeconomic status, race, or ethnicityare organizing peer-to-peer milk-sharing groups. Participants may be wealthy or poor, educated or not, or from similar or different cultural backgrounds.

They may share pumped milk, cross-nurse, or both, as Palmquist has observed. Reyes-Foster, who studied a peer network mostly comprised of educated, upper middle-class, White women, found that about 20 percent of the women breastfed another womans child directly.

These groups often explicitly state that participation must be altruistic and noncommercial. That approach differs from online milk sales or for-profit companies, such as Prolacta Bioscience, which sells milk to NICUs.

But nonprofit banks and for-profit companies come with more standards and established practices, like quality assurance and pasteurization. The fact that peer sharing lacks similar oversight has alarmed many in the medical community.

As news stories have circulated about milk sharing outside of milk banks in the U.S., the public health community has responded with concern. Doctors, epidemiologists, and microbiologists have emphasized that donated milk could carry pathogens, such as HIV, that recipients would be unable to screen. (Researchers dont know yet whether COVID-19 can be passed through breast milk.)

Even if you think you know someone, you cant be certain about their lifestyle and the medications in their breast milk, let alone illicit drugs, alcohol, tobacco, herbal remedies, or the environmental contaminants theyre exposed to at their jobs. Personally, I wouldnt do it, pediatrician Diana Mahar told a reporter for the Bay Area News Group in 2011.

Doctors, epidemiologists, and microbiologists have emphasized that donated milk could carry pathogens such as HIV.

In 2017, the American Academy of Pediatrics made an official recommendation against direct, internet-based, or informal human milk sharing. The organizations concern was that such practices simply are not as safe as obtaining milk from a milk bank.

While this may feel accurate to many women, its yet to be proven. We dont have evidence that casual milk sharing is harmful, says Amy Vickers, president of the HMBANA and the executive director of the Mothers Milk Bank of North Texas. Nonetheless, she notes, donor milk bank guidelines, which include screening donors for infection and guidance on proper milk storage, ensure a higher level of safety.

Anthropologists who study peer sharing and milk banks agree that there are many ethical, medical, and scientific questions to untangle. But they also worry that the medical community has been too quick to dismiss peer sharing.

Dangers exist, acknowledges Palmquist, but what was missing a decade ago, when many doctors dismissed this practice, was an understanding of where these women were coming from and how they shared their milk. Palmquist herself became an international board-certified lactation consultant to inform her research.

Palmquists findings suggest peer sharing is safer than relatively anonymous online sales, for example, through online chat groups. She has found that women in peer-to-peer sharing groups work hard to mitigate risk. They check donors they met online through community connections. They meet in person to get their own impressions, ask about medications and eating habits, and forge close relationships to build trust in the women offering milk.

Meanwhile, people care where their milk goes, Reyes-Foster notes. Instead of donating to a milk bank, some donors want to meet the babies they feed.

In the meantime, Palmquist fears that the medical establishments messages on milk sharing are out of sync with the reality. Overall, we have to see the big picture, she says. Before we begin demonizing the way women are caring for children and infants, we have to understand all the socioeconomic contexts.

Palmquist, along with cultural anthropologist Tanya Cassidy at Dublin City University and several other scholars, have argued that milk sharing is here to stay, so the medical establishment could help women figure out how to share safely. For example, Palmquist hopes health care professionals might use the evidence from anthropological and medical research to tailor their messages to parents and caregivers. They could assist or even facilitate peer-to-peer sharing in some cases.

A just dont message will not be enough, she contends. That works as well as telling people to not have sex to avoid sexually transmitted diseases or unwanted pregnancies, Palmquist says.

Many people in the milk-sharing movement feel society needs to give greater consideration to the diverse needs of mothers in light of new discoveries on breastfeeding and breast milk. Breastfeeding may, for example, offer benefits that even pumped milk cannot deliver.

Women have been advised by medical organizations, such as the WHO, that breast milk is the healthiest option for feeding infants. UNICEF Ethiopia/Flickr

In a culture that provides little support for what was once the biological norm, breastfeeding has become something for the privileged, Miller says. She has counseled women who have decided to quit jobs because they could not breastfeed and work, even though they could not afford to miss a paycheck.

Indeed, women in many varied contexts want to breastfeed and need help. Palmquist cites the transgender parents who also want to provide children with breast milk. Meanwhile, Cassidy, a leading ethnographer of human milk banking, wants both banks and sharing networks to be considered as part of a continuum of options that are carefully vetted but available to mothers in need.

Taking a broad view, the anthropologists who study cross-feeding, milk banks, and milk sharing suggest societies require multiple solutions for varied circumstances. We cant shame women, Hrdy says. There needs to be some nuance and flexibility and tolerance.

Mothers choose to provide for their children as best they canoften in the face of great obstacles. For Wascak, her intense desire to breastfeed became a seemingly unattainable goal with her cancer diagnosis. And yet her milk-sharing community provided a bridge to it.

With thousands of ounces of donated milk, her daughter Lucia thrived, reaching 16 pounds in four months. Eventually, Wascak was able to breastfeed Lucia herself. When Wascak died of cancer in 2015, Lucia was 18 months. She had never had formula, and only had human milk, just as her mother had intended.

Editors Note: On August7, 2020, we removed a historical illustration of an enslaved Black woman breastfeeding a White infant. We had selected that image tocall out the dynamic of inequality and exploitation described in the text, in which enslaved Black women sometimes were forced to serve as wet nurses by White families. However, we have replaced it upon learningthat such imagery has contributed to longstanding stereotypes around breastfeeding among African American women.

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Milk Sharing - What Milk-Sharing Communities Reveal - SAPIENS

Marchers in Toronto call for end to systemic anti-Black racism on Emancipation Day – CBC.ca

At least 100 people marched in downtown Toronto to celebrate Emancipation Day and to call for an end to anti-Black racism in government institutions in Canada.

Emancipation Day, markedevery year on Aug. 1, commemorates the abolition of slavery across the British Empire.

Marchers called for an end to anti-Black racism in such areas aschild welfare, policing, the criminal justice system, arts and culture, education and health care.

Yvette Blackburn, a spokesperson for theGlobal Jamaica Diaspora Council, said people marchedto celebrate freedom but also to demand that real change take place to improve the lives of Black people.

"What is freedom? Freedom comes at a cost. And right now, it'sthe cost of the lives and the interactions that we, as Black people, have to deal with every day in society," Blackburn told reporters.

"With the push of anti-Black racismand the recognition of our value and our work, we must be here to walk on this day to say that changes have to be implemented so that we get rid of anti-Black racism and the institutional discrimination that has been happening."

The march began at the Children's Aid Society of Toronto, 30 Isabella St., and ended at the Ontario legislature.

Along the route, marchersstopped at a number of points, including the Toronto Police Service headquarters, 40 College St., and the Ontario education ministry, 438 University Ave.

"It is our children thatare being impacted at a greater rate, at being institutionalized, at being displaced from families, having to deal with the educational system. The bonds and chains are no longer holding us, however, we are still bridled by the fact of discrimination and racism that exists in the institutions and the systems. We have to break those," Blackburnsaid.

"By being here on Emancipation Day, it's to say thatwe need to look structurally into the frameworks of discriminationand racism that are impacting us across the board."

Blackburn said activists arecallingonPrime Minister Justin Trudeau to apologize to Black people in Canada for slavery.

"There's never been an apology issued. I think it's time. Emancipation should be everywhere," she said.

Bishop Ransford Jones, lead pastor at the Destiny Gospel Centre in Markham, said that Emancipation Day is a historic day in Canada.

"Today is a very significant day. It is a solemn day. It is a sacred day for the abolition of slavery," he told reporters during the march. "We have to come to ensure that we use ourfreedom of today toensure the freedom for people oftomorrow."

Jones said he wants his two young children to live in a fair, free and equitable society.

"The key messagetoday is that we want to ensure systemic institutionalized racism in Canada is dismantled so that all people can live free."

Jones added that the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, which sparked street protests around the world,has led to a "greatawareness" and a new momentum against anti-Black racism.

"People are recognizing that the systems that have been entrenched over time donotservemarginalized, racialized, especially Black people. We want to ensure that those systemsare torn down and that things will change for the betterment of our people and society in general,"he added.

At a rally before the march, he told the crowd: "We are appealing to those in authority today that you must take your knees off people's necks and let them breathe in our spaces and in our places so we can all enjoy all this great country of Canada."

Jacqueline Edwards, president of Association of Black Law Enforcers, said Black people who work in law enforcement are trying to change the system from within. Edwards works for Correctional Service of Canada.

"We want the community to know that while there are problems within our systems, there are a number of us as well that are part of that system that arecarrying ourselves the right way and that are acknowledging the needfor change," Edwards said.

What is new in the anti-Black racism movement is the collaboration for change, not the recognition that change is necessary, she added.

"Everybody needs to take an active role in stomping out racism," she said.

Marchers chanted "No Justice, No Peace!" and "Peace on the left, justice on the right!" and "When Black lives are under attack, what do we do? Stand up, fight back!"

The Slavery Abolition Act received royal assent on Aug. 28, 1833 and the legislation cameinto force across the Empire and its colonies onAug. 1, 1834.

Since that time, Canadian communities have staged events to celebratethe abolition of slavery.

Organizations that supported Toronto'smarch are: A Different Booklist Cultural Centre, Black Artists' Networks In Dialogue, Black Health Alliance, Black Medical Students' Association at University of Toronto, CareMongering-TO, Destiny Gospel Centre, Global Jamaica Diaspora Council, Jamaican Canadian Association, Ma'at Legal Services, Ontario Alliance of Black School Educators, Unifor and Zero Gun Violence Movement.

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A Better World Is Not a Place, But a Practice: A Conversation with Judith Levine and Erica R. Meiners – lareviewofbooks

AUGUST 7, 2020

JOURNALIST AND ESSAYIST Judith Levine is the author of several books, including Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children from Sex (2002). Erica R. Meiners is professor of Education and Womens and Gender Studies at Northeastern Illinois University and the author of several books, most recently For the Children?: Protecting Innocence in a Carceral State (2016). Levine and Meiners have now co-authored The Feminist and the Sex Offender: Confronting Sexual Harm, Ending State Violence (released by Verso in April), which draws on history, research, and interviews to advance an intersectional feminist approach toward accountability, sexual safety, and pleasure without injustice or punishment.

M. BUNA: You reject the idea of injustice to some as justice to others and make a case against outsourcing vengeance to the state while recognizing crime as a fickle and malleable political term. Why is it vital to use harm instead of crime, especially when addressing issues of accountability? How can we use restorative and transformative processes without erasing the complicated realities of people making choices in their interpersonal relationships?

ERICA R. MEINERS: The deliberate use of harm instead of crime is just one move toward being more specific and useful. Its not the full answer, of course, but the criminal legal system makes available language like victim, offender (violent and nonviolent), crime, sex offender and these are more than simply words. They are weighted, never neutral, and frame acts and consequences. These criminal legal terms dont help us understand a thicket of important questions: What happened? What histories/genealogies led to a particular act? What relationships are at stake? And, most importantly, how can we collectively work to respond to the situation hold the person/s who have done harm accountable, and also work to meet the needs of the person who has been harmed? How do we ensure this harm doesnt happen again? The language that transformative justice and community accountability movements center makes things more complicated because relationships between people, and the harm they may cause, are complicated. Getting away from the criminal legal system and its obfuscating language is a move in the direction of working to build stronger and safer communities.

With the current push to craft new legal norms that police sexual encounters, and to add new forms of conduct (dating deception, revenge porn, stealthing) to the list of criminalized sexual behaviors, how do we determine who qualifies for the sex offender label in the first place?

JUDITH LEVINE: Sex offender is a capacious category, encompassing anyone from a flasher to a consensual teen lover to a rapist wielding a lethal weapon. Its not just vague; its dehumanizing: it uses a criminal conviction as an identity. The definitions of sex crimes change with history and politics, and thats happening now. #MeToo exposed the myriad ways that men (its mostly men) can be sexually nasty and violent toward (mostly) women. Along with debates about how to address sexual assault on campus, #MeToo widened the conversation about what to call different acts and what constitutes an offense. Where does misunderstanding turn to misconduct and where does misconduct cross the line to violence? Should we always #BelieveWomen or assume innocence until proof of guilt or should we look for other, more nuanced descriptions of harm? And then what?

The carceral (law and order) feminist approach is twofold: raise the legal standard for non-consent from no means no (stop when the other person indicates shes not into it) to yes means yes (dont start until a partner gives enthusiastic consent), which will lead to criminalizing a growing list of aggressive sex-related acts. But labeling more people as sex offenders or worse, predators will not help harm-doers understand the consequences of their actions or yield real accountability. We need to challenge a masculinist might makes right culture, not ask the state to punish more people.

The Sex Offender Registration Act wields the fantasy of the innocent child (almost always white, heteronormative, and asexual) in need of protection to enforce the registrants social death. By contrast, nonwhite bodies are seen as in need of correction, not protection children/teens of color are more likely to get listed as juvenile sex offenders and youth with sexual behavior problems. How are categories of guilt and innocence ultimately used against the most vulnerable already deemed not worthy of protection?

MEINERS: In this political moment again a young black man, Ahmaud Arbery, who was jogging in a white neighborhood, was viewed as suspicious, guilty, thus justifying lethal white self-defense. Nonwhite youths are aged up by white adults and not seen as innocent: a 10-year-old black girl is viewed by a white adult as a culpable 15-year-old. Organizations like Survived and Punished and Love and Protect support and fight alongside the many women particularly low-income, transgender, and/or nonwhite who are criminalized, never given the benefit of any innocence, and automatically assumed to be the perpetrator when they attempt to defend themselves against interpersonal or state violence. Queer folks, people who are HIV positive, and sex workers are always marked as predatory, particularly sexually. These examples and too many more remind us that guilt and innocence, far from being static and neutral, are malleable and weaponized against many people. Our criminal legal system requires that we invest in these terms guilt and innocence as if this social landscape doesnt exist.

When it comes to people with sex-related convictions, repaying ones debt to society takes the form of a period of civil commitment while being referred to as patients. What interests are invested in the medicalization of sexual violence, sometimes also disguised as a multidisciplinary collaboration between healers and jailers?

LEVINE: Actually, civil commitment is not repaying ones debt to society. The indefinite detention of a sex offender in a locked psychiatric facility happens after he completes a prison sentence putatively to prevent him from committing another offense. Civil commitment is the most extreme facet of the sex offender regime, which also includes long sentences, registration, and the restrictions that go along with them. But the whole regime is based on the same disproven idea that people who commit sex-related offenses suffer from a unique and incurable psychological illness. The medicalization and criminalization of sexual deviance goes back centuries. As recently as the 1960s, homosexuals were subjected to cruel cures and incarceration. The diagnosis that allows a state to civilly commit someone was invented in 1990: a sexually violent predator is defined as someone with a mental abnormality that predisposes him to sexual violence. But if this patient is incurable by definition, they are never well enough to be released, and most never are. Condemned by the American Psychiatric Association as the misuse of psychiatry for punitive purposes, civil commitment is preventive detention.

The section of your book called Fractured Resistance draws attention to several reformist and radical alternatives to the prison-industrial complex, as its manifested in the legal regime of sex offenses, showing their common points and contradictions. Can you say a bit about these alternatives, including the (un)likely alliances that might allow for the building of futures based on intersectional solidarity?

LEVINE: The landscape of movements addressing sexual violence and/or fighting for the rights of people accused and convicted of sex-related offenses is complex. Some feminists want to lock up more rapists while others would abolish prisons and address violence with non-criminal, restorative practices. There are wives and mothers working on behalf of men on the registry who are wary of all feminists; there are straight and queer men challenging ideologies of masculinity; there are antiracist prison abolitionists and more. Sometimes theyre in conflict for instance, when the coalition to restore voting rights to Floridians with felonies excluded sex offenders in order to get more support. Sometimes there are unexpected alliances, as when street-based sex workers, almost all low-income women and transwomen of color, joined with middle-class gay men to defeat a New Orleans ordinance to make crimes against nature i.e., sodomy in public places an offense requiring registration as a sex offender. A Harlem group organizing for nonviolent communities works with parishioners and clergy to confront sexual abuse within church congregations while helping to sustain survivor-supportive faith communities. Most recently, during the COVID-19 pandemic, those demanding the release of folks from prisons and jails to protect their health and lives have joined registered citizens in calling for suspensions of in-person registration and housing and internet restrictions, as well as release of the civilly committed.

You write: The carceral state is the carceral state, whether surrounded by razor wire or covered in ivy. The abolition movement seeks solutions for the interpersonal, social, economic, and political issues bound up in sex offenses, without defending prison on the one hand or merely advocating decarceration on the other. You advance abolition feminism as a way to rethink safety beyond prison and police, to confront sexual harm, and to end state violence. What does this political consciousness call for in terms of a paradigm shift away from current thoughts and practices?

MEINERS: Paradigm is the right word. This is long-haul collective work that we have to do every day. Abolition is about dismantling racist systems that dont make us safer public registries, policing, and prisons; but, just as centrally, abolition has always been the daily work to build, to experiment, to try to make our communities safer. Far from utopian, movements are doing this work right now, at the level of policy, and also at much more intimate registers and everything in between. For example, I flag the many ongoing campaigns and organizations that seek to divest from policing, or to halt new jail constructions, and instead to demand these public resources go to free, affirming, and community-controlled health care. (Shout out to Dignity and Power Now, Critical Resistance, and so many other grassroots groups that defeated the proposed new 4,000-bed jail in Los Angeles!) Divesting from these carceral sites is crucial, and yet, also in this moment, many, many organizations are offering workshops, webinars, and more on how to address interpersonal harm in your relationships without calling the police. And none of this work will be effective without, concurrently, challenging the interlocking -isms white supremacy, capitalism, heteropatriarchy, for example that provide the oxygen for our punishing systems. While everything is urgent, because the state is killing people, we recognize that we cannot reduce this paradigm shift to a checklist. This is slow work, sometimes experimental, going on at multiple registers.

Going against a social order based on domination, employing transformative possibilities to eliminate the cops in our heads and our hearts (as Paula Rojas put it in her 2007 book, The Revolution Will Not Be Funded), and increasing the self-determination and autonomy of individuals and communities all these important goals connect up to a major, overarching issue: the status of the state (carceral or not) as the ultimate power structure. Is working with the state and its formations an option for you or not?

LEVINE: Ive struggled with this question as a restorative justice (RJ) volunteer at the community justice center in a small town in Vermont, where I live half-time. RJ in Vermont is part of the criminal legal system. I had to sign a contract as an employee of the Department of Corrections. The cases we get are referred by the local police, some of whom grew up in town; sometimes it feels as if an old high school grudge is being played out. Or we get kids whove been arrested for stupid pranks at school. Many of our folks face deep mental health challenges and almost all are poor or of color, in a town thats almost 100 percent white. I feel were collaborating in the criminalization of misbehavior, turning a blind eye to possible police misconduct, and being used as a band-aid for huge injustices and inequalities. Still, the CJC helps people get jobs and services. Many of our cases are pre-charge, so if the person completes the process, theres no indictment or criminal record. The alternative can be juvenile detention or jail. And of course, when it works, RJ helps harm-doers take accountability and harmed people to feel heard and involved; and it introduces another way of thinking about crime. Ive lowered my expectations to keeping a few people out of prison while I continue to work for transformation and justice through writing and activism.

MEINERS: As I write with the current privilege of employment at a public university, I see my work for now as the both/and. Both working inside some of the worst institutions in the carceral state (including prisons), and actively supporting and funneling resources to movements, networks, and organizations that are trying to organize and build outside the carceral state. We cant yet cede the terrain of these punitive public institutions prisons, jails, schools in part because so many of our people are contained within them and dont have the luxury to leave! In the prison with many to keep us in check and accountable we try to be in it but not of it. All of this work is by necessity collective, and while community brings new opportunities for some joy and for the transformative possibilities of mutual aid, collectivity is essential to engender rigor in the negotiation of any tricky inside/outside work. Institutions are seductive and they co-opt and absorb all of our radical collective demands! While this is my pathway partially shaped by where I am grounded now and the movements and communities I am accountable to this is not a universal prescription. Right now, we need people working across all sites insurgents and builders, transformative justice practitioners, and people who can siphon resources and free others!

M. Buna is a freelance writer.

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A Better World Is Not a Place, But a Practice: A Conversation with Judith Levine and Erica R. Meiners - lareviewofbooks

Elections in Suriname; The rise of the PIOs – The Financial Express

By Amb. Aashna Kanhai with Aparaajita Pandey

Suriname witnessed its national elections this year, as Chandrikapersad Chan Santokhi takes his place as the President, the country looks forward to a new era of politics and prosperity. The elections of Suriname cannot be dethatched from the multi-ethnic history and politics of the country. As the Indian Origin, Afro- origin, Javanese- origin, and indigenous Amerindians make up the population of the country; its politics is bound to be influenced by the history of the people. As Suriname welcomed their new President, it did not go amiss that Chan Santokhi belongs to the Indo- Surinamese community.

When the Prime Minister of India recently mentioned to his countrymen, the oath-taking ceremony of the President of the Republic of Suriname, it is interesting to see how a quite natural and almost unnoticed detail of reciting a hymn from the Rig Veda caught international attention. In Suriname, a country with a multi-ethnic and multi-religious population, almost 36 % is of Indian Origin and official ceremonies usually are accompanied by blessings. The official language of this country is Dutch.

After more than 300 years of colonization, Suriname gained independence in 1975 from The Netherlands. The Amerindians are the first inhabitants. Slaves from West Africa were brought as early as 1667. Fleeing the inhumane conditions of slavery, the community of maroons established itself in the interiors and the dense Amazon Rainforest.

After the abolition of slavery, the colonizer introduced indentured laborers from British India and between 1873-1914, a total of 34000 Indians were shipped from mainly the U.P. Region to work on the sugar plantations in Suriname, for an initial contract of five years, with an option to return to India. In 1890, the indentured laborers were brought in from Java under similar conditions as the British Indians.

The majority of the Indian Indentured labourers had opted to stay in Suriname and receive one hectare of land. The economic rise of the second generation of the British Indians was caused by high prices of crops during the First World War and resulting in the fact that they could send their children to schools just like the free afro community. Of course, most schools were run by Christian Missionary organizations. The multi-ethnic reality emerged as post World War II, the emergence of Political Parties based on ethnicity and the right to vote was introduced in 1948, for all men, followed by internal independence from the colonizer in 1954.

Like in other parts of the Caribbean with Persons of Indian Origin, post decolonization politics were dominated by ethnicity, yet in Suriname bipolarity in this regard has not been the case, as the Javanese community introduced multi polarity. The PIO (Persons of Indian Origin) and the Persons of Afro Origin, were the major political players. During the independence, a massive exodus took place of PIOs to The Netherlands, making use of the option to leave, as a fear of the Afro dominance in government, post-independence was there. Fraternization politics were practised by leaders from the Afro- and PIO political parties, attempting to bring these two ethnic groups closer to each other and giving way to a future alliance of their parties for greater electoral gain.

Marking another change was the emergence of nationalist and more beyond ethnicity political movements, after the military regime of 1980-1987. Political awareness in the maroon community emerged especially after the war in the interior, in the 1980s and the discovery of large reserves of gold in the late 1990s by multinationals in the interior splurged growth of political parties led by leaders of Maroon descent, prompting the electorate that the Maroon community could no longer see itself as a backward group of Suriname.

In times where left and right are not so far from each other, the phenomenon of coalitions is the rule rather than the exception and exceptional Suriname, is no exception.

The recent elections in Suriname faced not only the challenge of the COVID -19 pandemic, yet the result was showing a massive growth of the party established during the decolonization by the PIO community. The dynamics of the growth of this party is best explained through its changes in name. It started as the United Hindustani Party (Verenigde Hindustaanse Partij, VHP) and transformed today to the United Reform Party (Verenigde Hervormings Partij).

As Suriname sets out to begin a new chapter in their politics, the country is hopeful about progress and prosperity. With the discovery of considerable crude oil reserves off the shore Suriname and an already established presence of ExxonMobil, the Surinamese population is looking towards its new administration to usher in the era of prosperity in the country.

(Amb Aashna Kanhai is the Ambassador of Suriname to India and Aparaajita Pandey is Asst. Professor at Amity University and a Doctoral Candidate at Jawaharlal Nehru University. Views expressed are personal).

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Whittier Birthplace enters 21st century | Haverhill – Eagle-Tribune

HAVERHILL Like so many places, the birthplace of John Greenleaf Whittier is dormant during the COVID-19 crisis.

There are no walking tours of the centuries-old building, where such events were long hosted by Whittier impersonator and museum curator Gus Reusch.

There are no virtual online tours available caretakers of the property never embraced that technology.

But all that is about to change as the birthplace of the famous poet steps into the 21st century, embracing modern ways people can see and learn about the site without ever stepping foot there.

Caretakers of the birthplace have hiredKaleigh Par as executive director of the property. Her mission is to make Whittier's Birthplace accessible electronically during the coronovirus crisis through a website that includes virtual tours.

She is also in discussions with trustees of the property to offer new outdoor activities starting this fall such as artist events, nature walks and, in the winter, possibly hiking and snowshoeing programs.

"I'd like to link up as many of Whittier's poems to this landscape as I can for the programming,"Parsaid, referring to one of Whittier's most enduring works, "Snow-Bound."

Those virtual and other changes will be designed to keep the community in touch with the birthplace during and after the health crisis.

Par,a Haverhill native and former trustee of the birthplace, took over as executive director this week and is responsible for guiding the homestead and museum through the challenges and opportunities of the coming years, said Arthur Veasey, president of the Whittier Birthplace Board of Trustees.

The historic land and buildings at 305 Whittier Road are a fixture among the citys cultural treasures. They were deeded to the trustees by James H. Carleton in 1892 to preserve the landscape and buildings as they were when occupied by a young Whittier. Later in life, he was renowned as a fireside poet and advocate of the abolition of slavery in the United States.

Whittier lived from 1807 to 1892.

Par is an experienced museum professional specializing in historic sites, and was previously an educator at Haverhill's Buttonwoods Museum and the Ipswich Museum. She most recently was director of the Patton Homestead in Hamilton, where she continues to work part time.

"Making strategic hires like this is essential in supporting our core strategy to become a premier museum in Essex County," Veasey said. "During these challenging times, we remain focused on our mission to perpetuate the reputation, visibility, and popularity of our museum and grounds as a destination for visitors and as a welcoming venue for special events."

Par graduated from Haverhill High School in 2006 and went on to study anthropology and graduate from Bates College. She received a master of liberal arts degree specializing in museum studies from Harvard University.

"I love history and I always have," she said.

Veasey noted that following the retirement of Reusch, long-time curator of the museum who for years led tours of the birthplace, often impersonating Whittier, the trustees decided totry something new.

"With the retirement of Gus, it left a big void as he was very special in his knowledge of the birthplace," Veasey said."We've never had an executive director before, and bringing Kaleigh on board is a huge step in the next chapter of the birthplace. The most successful museums tend to have an executive director."

Reusch's son Mark Reusch, a freelance illustrator and art instructor, is caretaker of the birthplace and lives there, Veasey said.

In a typical year, the birthplace is visited by people from around the world, but with the building closed to the public due to the COVID-19 crisis, the homestead saw more visitorswalkingthe Freeman Trail that loops the homestead this year than in past years,Parsaid.

The trail has 13 numbered locations, each a landmark cited in Whittiers poetry or his many biographies. The trail is named for Donald C. Freeman, who lived from 1901 to 2001 and was a trustee of the birthplace. He was a Haverhill public school teacher, principal and superintendent.

Par is nearly finished designing a new website that will include videos of the birthplace and a variety of information about the site.

"We're working on creating other activities for thisfall, including some virtual learning that may be usedwithin schools and for families, and part of that will be some virtual tours,"Par said. "We've already created a short video tour of the Freeman Trail that includes paintings of the different seasons by Mark Reusch."

She alsohopes toincorporate the Freeman Trail intoEssex National Heritage Area Trails and Sails events in September.

A brochure explaining sites along the Freeman Trail is available at the entrance to the homesteadand at johngreenleafwhittier.com/visit.htm.

For a virtual tour of the Freeman Memorial Trail, visit youtu.be/DmRdCL1RpG4.

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75 years after Hiroshima, I wonder if the goal of abolishing nuclear weapons is just a dream – The Globe and Mail

Former senator Douglas Roche was Canadas ambassador for disarmament from 1984 to 1989. In 2010, he was made an honorary citizen of Hiroshima for his work on nuclear disarmament.

At 8:15 on the fateful morning of Aug. 6, 1945, as the Second World War was drawing to a close in the Pacific, an American atomic bomb exploded 580 metres above the heart of Hiroshima, Japan. Thermal rays emanating from a gigantic fireball charred every human being in a two-kilometre circle. Old and young, male and female, soldier and civilian the killing was utterly indiscriminate and, in the end, 140,000 people were dead. Three days later, similar atomic carnage obliterated Nagasaki.

That was the beginning of the nuclear age, 75 years ago.

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I was 16 at the time and I remember sitting at the kitchen table, listening to the radio news about a new kind of bomb. The destruction was so massive that government officials were predicting the war in the Pacific would be over in a matter of days. My parents sighed with relief: I would be spared having to go to war.

Theres a dwindling number now of hibakusha the name for Japanese people who survived the attacks which means there are few left with direct memory of the horror of mass destruction. Soon Hiroshima and Nagasaki will be but history.

But they are not history for me. With 13,400 nuclear weapons possessed today by nine countries, they are a living reality. The United Nations top official on disarmament affairs, Izumi Nakamitsu, visited Ottawa recently and said that the risk of use of nuclear weapons deliberately, by accident or through miscalculation, is higher than it has been in decades.

The contrast between nuclear realities and aspirations is stunning. Arms control and disarmament treaties, painstakingly constructed over many years, are crumbling. All the nuclear weapons states are modernizing their arsenals. The three major states on the UN Security Council the United States, Russia and China are the very ones ratcheting up tensions.

On the other hand, the International Court of Justice has ruled that states have an obligation to conclude negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament. Pope Francis and many other spiritual leaders have condemned the possession of nuclear weapons. A new prohibition treaty, signed by 122 states, outlaws them.

Yet the nuclear states spent US$72.9-billion last year on nuclear weapons (the U.S. spent more than the next eight states combined). Not even the ravages of COVID-19, painfully illustrating the need for huge sums of money to be redirected to health needs, has deterred the nuclear planners. And the political leaders appear impotent against the demands of the military-industrial complex for more weapons of mass destruction.

Seventy-five years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we have to ask ourselves: Is the long-sought goal of the abolition of nuclear weapons but a dream? This is a question that haunts me.

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In the early years of my life, I never thought about nuclear weapons, except perhaps around the time of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. But as a young parliamentarian in the 1970s, I visited Hiroshima and Nagasaki and talked to the hibakusha and saw the horrors depicted so vividly in the museums. It hit me forcibly that continued spending on these instruments of death was directly stealing from the poor of the world whose security depends not on weaponry but food, health, housing and education.

I started campaigning for nuclear disarmament in order to expedite the development processes. The UN became a second home for me as I struggled with the political machinations that have contorted security to mean that I am safer if I am able to bomb you out of existence.

I have approached the problem of abolition as a parliamentarian, diplomat and civil society activist. Why can there not be a time-bound program of mutual and verifiable nuclear disarmament? The models exist. Secretaries-general of the UN have repeatedly called for progress. Is not the logic of abolition overpowering?

The answer to the elusive question of abolition lies in the power nuclear weapons give their possessors. Abolition can only be achieved by slowly convincing the powerful that their security will be enhanced as they gradually reduce their stocks to zero.

Obviously, international confidence must be built at every successive step along the way. This is an area where Canada could shine in fostering a new international dialogue. But to do this, we would have to care enough about Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The hibakusha have never given up their call for abolition. And neither will I.

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75 years after Hiroshima, I wonder if the goal of abolishing nuclear weapons is just a dream - The Globe and Mail

US bishops renew call for abolition of nuclear weapons | News Headlines – Catholic Culture

Catholic World News

July 31, 2020

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CWN Editor's Note: This week we are observing the 75th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and August 9, 1945, the president of the US bishops conference said. My brother bishops and I mourn with the Japanese people for the innocent lives that were taken and the generations that have continued to suffer the public health and environmental consequences of these tragic attacks.

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Caribbean Observes 186th Anniversary of the Abolition of Slavery – caribbeannationalweekly.com

GEORGETOWN-Guyana -The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) will observe the 186th anniversary of the abolition of slavery on Saturday, with the chairman of the regional integration movement, St. Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves saying that this years observance is taking on a greater international significance.

Gonsalves said that all, all but two of the CARICOM countries commemorate and celebrate Emancipation Day on August 1st .

The overwhelming majority of the population of CARICOM member-countries are of African descent. Joyously, people of all ethnicities in CARICOM join in commemorating and celebrating Emancipation Day; all rightfully claim this historic day as their own.

Gonsalves said the Black Lives Matter (BLM) Movement has gone global in a massive way consequent upon the popular resistance in the United States of America to racism, racial inequality, racial injustice and oppression and the uplifting fight for liberty, justice, and equality in every material respect.

He said the world is half-way through the International Decade for People of African Descent (2015- 2024), which was proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in a Resolution (68/237), adopted on December 23, 2013; and focused on the theme People of African Descent: Recognition, Justice, and Development.

The gathering pace of the international movement for Reparations for Native Genocide and the Enslavement of Africans in the Caribbean, Africa, Latin America, Europe and North America, to provide appropriate recompense for the legacy of under-development consequent upon native genocide and

The joinder of the struggle for reparations with the quest for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in September 2015, and designed as a blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all by 2030, he said.

He said the current coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, which has adversely affected, disproportionately, poor communities and countries, especially those already ravaged by developmental inequities and distortions, traced substantially to the legacy of under-development to native genocide and the enslavement of Africans.

Gonsalves said he was urging all in CARICOM to focus on reparations for the enslavement of Africans on Emancipation Day.

In our region, and elsewhere, we need to have a more thorough-going public education programme on the meaning and significance of reparatory justice for the Caribbean. Further, our governments must ramp up the political, diplomatic, and international legal struggle for reparations. All hands are required on deck as a matter of urgency.

He said CARICOM has established a Prime Ministerial Sub-Committee on Reparatory Justice headed by the Prime Minister of Barbados. CARICOM has set up, too, a CARICOM Reparations Commission, chaired by Sir Hilary Beckles, Vice Chancellor of the University of the West Indies.

Gonsalves said the Commission has advanced a 10-point CARlCOM Reparations Agenda which has been adopted by the CARICOM leaders and that in each country, a National Reparations Commission has been established with broad-based representation.

Solid ground work has been done thus far, but we must not lose any momentum or be side-tracked. The circumstances are now propitious for escalating a coordinated push for reparatory justice. And CARICOM must engage the African Union fully on this.

He said recently, several CARICOM member-states have been strengthening their links with Africa in profound ways; so, too, CARICOM and the African Union.

Much more is required to be done, and urgently, too. At the United Nations Security Council, a new institutional linkage of much consequence has been forged known as the A3 Plus One (the African 3: Niger, South Africa, and Tunisia, Plus St. Vincent and the Grenadines) ; this represents a collaboration between the regions of continental Africa and a representative country (St. Vincent and the Grenadines) of the sixth region of the African Union, namely the African diaspora.

Gonsalves said that a high quality of abundant research has been done and published, on Reparations for Native Genocide and the Enslavement of Africans.

More is still required to be done, but there is more than enough for us to proceed upon in our many-sided struggle. So, let us highlight reparatory justice on Emancipation Day, 2020, even as the individual countries in CARICOM engage in commemorative and celebratory activities of a cultural, social, political, and religious nature, he added.

He also urged the Caribbean to remember that June 13, this year was the 40th anniversary of the assassination of the Guyanese-born academic, Walter Rodney.

No one has yet been brought to court for the killing of Walter. The next government of Guyana must address this matter fully; it is a gaping wound in our collective consciousness which must be healed, Gonsalves said.

CMC

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Caribbean Observes 186th Anniversary of the Abolition of Slavery - caribbeannationalweekly.com

Eric Brock elected as new Student Government president in special election – The Eagle

Eric Brock, a rising junior in the School of Public Affairs, has been elected to serve as the Student Government president for the remainder of the 2020-2021 academic year.

Brock won 41 percent of the vote in the special election held following the resignation of former SG President Nikola Jok, one month into his term. Rising seniors Hope Morency and Gary Lal also ran for the position.

Theres a lot of work to do, Brock said. Were ready to get to work because theres a lot of things that the students need right now, and were focused on making sure that people get the representation that they need.

Brocks campaign platform emphasized addressing student concern over the Title IX office procedure and the abolition of social Greek life. As president, Brock also plans to aid students financially by repurposing the Student Involvement Fund and other AUSG funds to use as a discretionary grant for students affected by the coronavirus. Other goals of his include reforming and improving mental health services on campus, establishing student oversight of AUPD, and increasing funding for students of color.

Mason Peeples, a rising junior in the College of Arts and Sciences and School of Communication, ran a last-minute write-in campaign for the position on the platform of abolishing social Greek life after being nominated by the Student Coalition to Abolish IFC and Panhellenic Greek life at AU.

With 664 total voters, Brock received 269 votes, Lal received 158 votes, Morency received 129 votes and Peeples received 52 votes. Write-ins and others accounted for 56 votes.

Although Student Government presidents typically hire their own cabinets, Brock will work with previous president Nikola Joks cabinet, as internal SG rules prevent a new president from firing their predecessors staff, SG inspector Brian Fu said.

The coalition drew criticism this week, both internally and from the campus community, for its last-minute support of Peeples, especially since he is dating one of the organizations founding members.

Muskan Kaur, the director of the coalition, said the group was motivated to support Peeples campaign after allegations were raised against other candidates on social media.

The coalition later voted internally to de-endorse Peeples when members complained that they were not consulted by leadership before his candidacy was put forward Monday evening, Kaur said.

Kaur referred The Eagle to a letter she wrote to the student body to apologize for the coalitions handling of the race.

We recognize that from this point forward we need to focus solely on the abolition of [social] Greek life on American Universitys campus, Kaur wrote in the letter, adding the groups intentions were not to cause any harm to the AU community, nor portray the coalition as a political party or group.

Also on the ballot were student council positions in the School of Education. Abigail Sherer, a rising sophomore, was elected president, as a write-in candidate, with a single vote. No other positions were filled.

Dan Papscun contributed reporting to this article.

kcartelli@theeagleonline.com, smattalian@theeagleonline.com

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Eric Brock elected as new Student Government president in special election - The Eagle

Ten Years to Midnight: Four urgent global crises and their strategic solutions – Modern Diplomacy

For the first time in the ILOs history, an International Labour Convention has been ratified by all member States. Convention No. 182 on the Worst Forms of Child Labour achieved universal ratification, following ratification by the Kingdom of Tonga.

Ambassador for the Kingdom of Tonga, Titilupe Fanetupouvavau Tuivakano, formally deposited the ratification instruments with ILO Director-General, Guy Ryder on 4 August, 2020.

The Convention is the most rapidly ratified Convention in the history of the Organization, since its adoption 21 years ago by the International Labour Conference.

Universal ratification of Convention 182 is an historic first that means that all children now have legal protection against the worst forms of child labour, said ILO Director-General Guy Ryder. It reflects a global commitment that the worst forms of child labour, such as slavery, sexual exploitation, the use of children in armed conflict or other illicit or hazardous work that compromises childrens health, morals or psychological wellbeing, have no place in our society.

Secretary-General of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), Sharan Burrow, welcomed the ratification.

Universal ratification of Convention 182 is a potent and timely reminder of the importance of ILO standards and the need for multilateral solutions to global problems. Child labour is a grievous violation of fundamental rights, and it is incumbent on the ILOs constituents and the international community to ensure that this Convention is fully implemented, including through due diligence in global supply chains, she said.

The universal ratification of ILO Convention No. 182 on the worst forms of child labour is an historic moment, said Roberto Surez Santos, Secretary-General of the International Organization of Employers (IOE). Throughout the years, the IOE and its member organizations have supported the implementation of this Convention. Today, the business community is both aware of and acting on the need to do business with respect for childrens rights. This is even more urgent in the times of the COVID-19 pandemic. We cannot allow the fight against the worst form of child labour to backslide. Together we can work towards the end of child labour in all its forms.

This universal ratification is a further step towards making more concrete the aspirations of Kailash Satyarthi, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, when he said: I dream of a world full of safe children and safe childhoods; I dream of a world where every child enjoys the freedom to be a child.

The ILO estimates that there are 152 million children in child labour, 73 million of whom are in hazardous work. Seventy per cent of all child labour takes place in agriculture and is mostly related to poverty and parents difficulties finding decent work.

Convention No. 182 calls for the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labour, including slavery, forced labour and trafficking. It prohibits the use of children in armed conflict, prostitution, pornography and illicit activities such as drug trafficking, and in hazardous work.

It is one of the ILOs eight Fundamental Conventions. These cover the abolition of child labour, the elimination of forced labour, the abolition of work-related discrimination and the rights to freedom of association and collective bargaining. These principles are also covered by the ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work (1998).

Since the ILOs founding in 1919, child labour has been a core concern. The Organizations first Director, Albert Thomas, described child labour as, the exploitation of childhood which constitutes the evil most unbearable to the human heart. Serious work in social legislation begins always with the protection of children.

It is the focus of one of the ILOs largest development cooperation programmes the International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour and Forced Labour (IPEC+), which has supported over 100 countries in all continents.

The incidence of child labour and its worst forms dropped by almost 40 per cent between 2000 and 2016, as ratification rates of Convention No. 182 and Convention No. 138 (on minimum age to work) increased, and countries adopted effective laws and policies.

However, progress has slowed in recent years, particularly amongst the youngest age group (5-11 years) and in some geographical areas. With the COVID-19 pandemic, there is a real risk that years of progress will be reversed, leading to a potential increase in child labour for the first time in 20 years, unless appropriate action is taken.

Ending child labour by 2025 in all its forms is included under Target 8.7 of the Sustainable Development Goals, adopted by all UN Member States in 2015. The global partnership, Alliance 8.7, for which the ILO provides the Secretariat, brings together over 250 partners and 21 Pathfinder Countries to coordinate, innovate and accelerate progress to end child labour, forced labour, human trafficking and modern slavery. The universal ratification of Convention No. 182 demonstrates the will of all ILO member States to ensure that every child, everywhere, is free from child labour and its worst forms.

This landmark achievement comes just months before the start of the International Year for the Elimination of Child Labour in 2021, to be led by the ILO in collaboration with partners. Its aim is to raise awareness of the issue and to help accelerate the pace of progress.

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Ten Years to Midnight: Four urgent global crises and their strategic solutions - Modern Diplomacy

Black Windsorites say Emancipation Day is more significant this year – CBC.ca

While celebrations for Emancipation Day may look different this year due to COVID-19, four Black Windsorites say the day is more significant in light of recent events most notably the death of George Floyd, which sparked worldwide Black Lives Matter protests.

Emancipation Day, celebrated each year on Aug. 1, commemorates the abolition of slavery across the British Empire.

The Slavery Abolition Act received royal assent on Aug. 28, 1833, but the legislation wouldn't come into force across the Empire and its colonies until Aug. 1, 1834.

Since then, communities across Canada, including in Windsor-Essex, hold events in honour of the abolition of slavery.

Fourth yearpsychology student at the University of WindsorFardovza Kusow,executive director of the Sandwich Teen Action Group John Elliott,law student Kendra Wilson at the University of Windsor and musician Abdullah Abubakre, also known as Ayola, told CBC News how this year's Emancipation Day takes on a whole new meaning and discussed their hopes for the future.

Kusow: Emancipation Day not only is an acknowledgement and a reminder of what we've accomplished so far, but also a reminder of what's left to be done. As a third generation Black Canadian, I grew up still experiencing anti-Black racism and racism in and of itself, but whenever I would face it head on, I would immediately be invalidated because this is Canada. We're not as bad as you know insert other country but it's important to acknowledge that there's still issues deep-rooted in Canada. And as much as we have a wonderful day, such as Emancipation Day, liberation cannot be fully accomplished without the acknowledgement and the accountability that need to be taken for issues that are still happening.

Elliott: When I was about 10 years old and I lived downtown at that time with my family, McDougall Avenue, which was in proximity to Jackson Park, where Emancipation was held, that was a highlight as a kid. That was a highlight event for the year. It was always summer vacation but 'can't wait until Emancipation Day came around.' At the time, I think this celebration ran for about a week and a half. So, it was an extended celebration, just great memories.

Wilson: I was born in Jamaica, and so this is something we have been celebrating since I was a little girl through cultural dances and poetry from icons such as Louis Bennett. As a child, the dark significance of that day did not register to me, but as I grew older, my mother taught me about Black history through books and films, and for the longest time, I felt a great sense of anger and disappointment for the way Black people had been treated. So as it stands, Emancipation Day is a sad reminder of the horrendous period in Canadian history and countries around the world about the lived reality that Black people faced in the past and presently face. I am grateful that we are no longer bounded in chains as Black people, but Emancipation Day is just a constant reminder for me that we have a long way to go. Emancipation is not just a physical act, it's also a state of mind, and with that being said, mental slavery is still a problem. Emancipation is still a problem because Black people are still restricted, targeted and treated unjustly.

Ayola: It's huge, right, because that's about the day we were set free Black slavery and all. ... but the same time, it's hurtful because seeing that we had to be set free for some things that shouldn't even [have existed]in the first place. ... It's freedom in a painful way.

Wilson: The last couple of months show that Emancipation means that we are free from the shackles, but we still have huge issues of supremacy affecting Black livelihood and wellbeing. It's a small view of the battles we have been fighting for the longest time. Windsor is one of the cities of significance that remind me of the realities we have been facing. Just a few steps away, we have the Sandwich First BaptistChurch, a significant stop along the Underground Railroad, where enslaved Black people aimed to escape from slavery. As I said, it's great that it's not still an active reality, but the last couple of months show us that the fight against inequality, discrimination and anti-Black racism is something Black people in Canada, and around the world, continue to face. We are not free until we are liberated from these restrictions among others.

Kusow: I've been pretty involved in educating myself on Black history and social justice since high school, but when you talk to others or even my own friends, some people still don't know when Canadian Emancipation Day is or when we talk about a holiday happening this weekend. People usually don't really know which holiday that is. Due to the current political environment and considering that we are in the largest civil rights movement in history, it allows people to take a step back and ask themselves, 'okay, what's going on where I live and how can I further educate myself on my own history, my own country's history and what's left to be done?'

Ayola: Yeah, it does because the George Floyd incident isn't the first of its kind. It's been happening for years and years, but I guess the attention that was paid to this one just made one realize that I think we are moving in the right direction. Normally, I just think 'oh it's just another [political movement]' and we forget about it and everything andgo back to normal over time. With the way things are playing out now, I just feel like it's a step in the right direction. ... People are becoming more passionate about it.

Elliott: All we can do is love each other. You know, foster good friendships. There is racial tension and that sort of thing going on, but we still have to live together. We have to work together. We have to try and get along. I'm thankful we live in Canada because in the backdrop of the U.S. where their problems seem to be rather enormous compared to Windsor's .. and in Canada itself. Although there is systemic racism problems in Canada too, we realize that, but I mean, at the end of the day, that's something that we're going to have to just continue to live with and do our best to try and eliminate it. My thing is just learn to get along.

Ayola: I definitely see racism becoming a thing of the past in my lifetime. Yeah, that's what I hope to happen. And I do feel like it's getting better because there's more integration now than there ever was. So people are coming from different parts of the world you know. Slavery aside, racism is sometimes also a fact of us stillgetting to know each other and not being able to integrate, but now that everyone is everywhere ... it breeds more integration. And more integration leads to more understanding. So, I definitely feel that in my lifetime, racism would be minimal.

Wilson: The list is endless to be honest. We have made a lot of progress, but we still have a lotof work ahead of us, huge emphasis on a lot. On a large scale, I seek a future society where access to justice issues facing Blacks do not start with large scale protest, but instead, where timely justice for Black victims is no issue at all. A society where Black women do not fear having children as a result of the risk of them dying at a young age or being killed at the hands of cops or people's general racist actions. A society where Black men, there are more of them in fortune 500 companies than in the prison system. Ultimately, a society where we don't have to fight for equality and equity, where justice for Black victims comes easy and the #BlackLivesMatter is not something we constantly have to scream at the top of our lungs just to be heard. This future starts with me and you actively working toward this. Starting now, championing the work of greats like Viola Desmond, Martin Luther King Jr, Rosemary Brown among other important individuals advocating for the human rights of Black people.

Kusow: I feel like I grew up in a generation of youth that is taking a stand and launching initiatives, taking on that leadership role to not only fix but approach the issue head on and work to build a better future for future generations after us because this has been going on for a little too long and it's clear that people are fed up and wish to see a change.

Kusow also urges people to educate themselves.

"Don't be ashamed to ask questions," she said. "There are always resources that you can turn to, people that you can turn to who will be grateful to educate you on what you're asking and it'll lead to a better mindset. And later on, you can tell someone else the same things that you learned."

CBC News learned via email that Richmond Hill Liberal MP Majid Jowhari'shas been working with Nova Scotia senator Wanda Thomas Bernardto introduce a motion to Parliament to nationally recognize Aug.1as Emancipation Day.

Themotion wasset to be presented to the house earlier this year, but was delayed due to COVID-19. Jowhari'soffices continue to advocate for the motion, according to the email, and will be presenting it again.

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Black Windsorites say Emancipation Day is more significant this year - CBC.ca

Clean Up This Mess: The Chinese Thinkers Behind Xis Hard Line – The New York Times

HONG KONG When Tian Feilong first arrived in Hong Kong as demands for free elections were on the rise, he said he felt sympathetic toward a society that seemed to reflect the liberal political ideas he had studied as a graduate student in Beijing.

Then, as the calls escalated into protests across Hong Kong in 2014, he increasingly embraced Chinese warnings that freedom could go too far, threatening national unity. He became an ardent critic of the demonstrations, and six years later he is a staunch defender of the sweeping national security law that China has imposed on the former British colony.

Mr. Tian has joined a tide of Chinese scholars who have turned against Western-inspired ideas that once flowed in Chinas universities, instead promoting the proudly authoritarian worldview ascendant under Xi Jinping, the Communist Party leader. This cadre of Chinese intellectuals serve as champions, even official advisers, defending and honing the partys hardening policies, including the rollout of the security law in Hong Kong.

Back when I was weak, I had to totally play by your rules. Now Im strong and have confidence, so why cant I lay down my own rules and values and ideas? Mr. Tian, 37, said in an interview, explaining the prevailing outlook in China. Witnessing the tumult as a visiting scholar in Hong Kong in 2014, Mr. Tian said, he rethought the relationship between individual freedom and state authority.

Hong Kong is, after all, Chinas Hong Kong, he said. Its up to the Communist Party to clean up this mess.

While Chinas Communist Party has long nurtured legions of academics to defend its agenda, these authoritarian thinkers stand out for their unabashed, often flashily erudite advocacy of one-party rule and assertive sovereignty, and their turn against the liberal ideas that many of them once embraced.

They portray themselves as fortifying China for an era of deepening ideological rivalry. They describe the United States as a dangerous, overreaching shambles, even more so in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. They oppose constitutional fetters on Communist Party control, arguing that Western-inspired ideas of the rule of law are a dangerous mirage that could hobble the party.

They argue that China must reclaim its status as a world power, even as a new kind of benign empire displacing the United States. They extol Mr. Xi as a historic leader, guiding China through a momentous transformation.

A number of these scholars, sometimes called statists, have worked on policy toward Hong Kong, the sole territory under Chinese rule that has been a stubborn enclave for pro-democracy defiance of Beijing. Their proposals have fed into Chinas increasingly uncompromising line, including the security law, which has swiftly curbed protests and political debate.

We ignore these voices at our own risk, said Timothy Cheek, a historian at the University of British Columbia who helps run Reading the China Dream, a website that translates works by Chinese thinkers. They give voice to a stream of Chinese political thought that is probably more influential than liberal thought.

As well as earnestly citing Mr. Xis speeches, these academics draw on ancient Chinese thinkers who counseled stern rulership, along with Western critics of liberal political traditions. Traditional Marxism is rarely cited; they are proponents of order, not revolution.

Many of them make respectful nods in their papers to Carl Schmitt, the German legal theorist who supplied rightist leaders in the 1930s and the emerging Nazi regime with arguments for extreme executive power in times of crisis, Ryan Mitchell, an assistant professor of law at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, documented in a recent paper.

Theyve provided the reasoning and justification, Fu Hualing, a professor of law at the University of Hong Kong, said of Chinas new authoritarian scholars. In a way, its the Carl Schmitt moment here.

Chinas ideological landscape was more varied a decade ago, when Mr. Tian was a graduate student at Peking University, a traditionally more liberal campus. Censorship was lighter, and universities tolerated guarded discussion of liberal ideas in classrooms.

Many scholars, including Mr. Tians dissertation adviser, Zhang Qianfan, argued that Hong Kong, with its robust judicial independence, could inspire similar steps in mainland China. I had also been nurtured by liberal scholars. Mr. Tian said.

Such ideas have gone into sharp retreat since Mr. Xi took power in 2012. He began a drive to discredit ideas like universal human rights, separation of powers and other liberal concepts.

Dissenting academics are maligned in the party-run news media and risk professional ruin. Xu Zhangrun, a law professor at Tsinghua University in Beijing, was detained in July and dismissed from his job after writing a stream of essays condemning the partys direction under Mr. Xi.

The education authorities generously fund pro-party scholars for topics such as how to introduce security laws in Hong Kong. Chinese and foreign foundations that once supported less orthodox Chinese scholars have retrenched because of tightening official restrictions.

More than fear and career rewards have driven this resurgence of authoritarian ideas in China. The global financial crisis of 2007, and the United States floundering response to the coronavirus pandemic, have reinforced Chinese views that liberal democracies are decaying, while China has prospered, defying predictions of the collapse of one-party rule.

China is actually also following a path that the United States took, seizing opportunities, developing outward, creating a new world, Mr. Tian said. There is even a fervent hope that well overtake the West in another 30 years.

Chinas authoritarian academics have proposed policies to assimilate ethnic minorities thoroughly. They have defended Mr. Xis abolition of a term limit on the presidency, opening the way for him to stay in power indefinitely. They have argued that Chinese-style rule by law is inseparable from rule by the Communist Party. And more recently they have served as intellectual warriors in Beijings efforts to subdue protest in Hong Kong.

For them, law becomes a weapon, but its law thats subordinated to politics, said Sebastian Veg, a professor at the School of Advanced Studies in Social Sciences in Paris who has studied the rise of Chinas statist thinkers. Weve seen that at work in China, and now it seems to me were seeing it come to Hong Kong.

For Hong Kong, these scholars have supplied arguments advancing Beijings drive for greater central control.

Under the legal framework that defined Hong Kongs semi-autonomy after its return to China in 1997, many in the territory assumed that it would mostly manage its own affairs for decades. Many believed that Hong Kong lawmakers and leaders would be left to develop national security legislation, which was required by that framework.

But Mr. Xis government has pushed back, demanding greater influence. The authoritarian scholars, familiar with both Mr. Xis agenda and Hong Kong law, have distilled those demands into elaborate legal arguments.

Several Beijing law professors earlier served as advisers to the Chinese governments office in Hong Kong, including Jiang Shigong and Chen Duanhong, both of Peking University. They declined to be interviewed.

I dont think theyre necessarily setting the party line, but theyre helping to shape it, finding clever ways to put into words and laws what the party is trying to do, said Mr. Mitchell, of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. This is all happening through legislation, so their ideas matter.

A Chinese government paper in 2014, which Professor Jiang is widely credited with helping write, asserted that Beijing had comprehensive jurisdiction over Hong Kong, dismissing the idea that China should stay hands off. The framework that defined Hong Kongs status was written in the 1980s, when China was still weak and under the sway of foreign liberal ideas, he later said.

They treat Hong Kong as if it were part of the West, and they treat the West as if it were the entire world. Professor Jiang recently said of Hong Kongs protesters. Chinas rise has not, as some imagined, drawn Hong Kong society to trust the central authorities.

After protesters occupied Hong Kong streets in 2014, he and other scholars pressed the case that China had the power to impose national security legislation there, rejecting the idea that such legislation should be left in the hands of the reluctant Hong Kong authorities.

The survival of the state comes first, and constitutional law must serve this fundamental objective, Professor Chen, the Peking University academic, wrote in 2018, citing Mr. Schmitt, the authoritarian German jurist, to make the case for a security law in Hong Kong.

When the state is in dire peril, Professor Chen wrote, leaders could set aside the usual constitutional norms, in particular provisions for civic rights, and take all necessary measures.

Professor Chen submitted an internal study to the partys policymakers on introducing security legislation for Hong Kong, according to a Peking University report in 2018, over a year before the party publicly announced plans for such a law.

Since Chinas legislature passed the security law in late June, he, Mr. Tian and allied Chinese scholars have energetically defended it in dozens of articles, interviews and news conferences. Chinese intellectuals, Mr. Tian suggested, will next confront worsening relations with the United States.

We have to choose what side were on, including us scholars, right? he said. Sorry, the goal now is not Westernization; its the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.

Amber Wang contributed research from Beijing.

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The Myth of John James Audubon | Audubon – National Audubon Society

This piece, written by a historian and biographer of John James Audubon, is the first in a series of pieces on Audubon.org and in Audubon magazine that will reexamine the life and legacy of the organizations namesake as we chart a course toward racial equity.

John James Audubon was a man of many identities: artist, naturalist, woodsman, ladies man, storyteller, myth maker. A now-legendary painter who traveled North America in the early 19th century, in an epic quest to document all of the continents avian life, he is above all known as a champion of birds. Today we see that legacy preserved in the National Audubon Society, but also in the cities, streets, and even birds that bear his name.

Audubon was also a slaveholder, a point that many people dont know or, if they do, tend to ignore or excuse. He was a man of his time, so the argument goes. Thats never been a good argument, even about Audubons timeand certainly not in this onebecause many men and women in the antebellum era took a strong and outspoken stand for the abolition of slavery.

Audubon didnt. Instead, he dismissed the abolitionist movement on both sides of the Atlantic. In 1834, he wrote to his wife, Lucy Bakewell Audubon, that the British government had acted imprudently and too precipitously in emancipating enslaved people in its West Indian possessions. It was with remarkable understatement that one of Audubons earlier biographers wrote that Lucy and John Audubon took no stand against the institution of slavery.

They took a stand for slavery by choosing to own slaves. In the 18-teens, when the Audubons lived in Henderson, Kentucky, they had nine enslaved people working for them in their household, but by the end of the decade, when faced with financial difficulties, they had sold them. In early 1819, for instance, Audubon took two enslaved men with him down the Mississippi to New Orleans on a skiff, and when he got there, he put the boat and the men up for sale. The Audubons then acquired several more enslaved people during the 1820s, but again sold them in 1830, when they moved to England, where Audubon was overseeing the production of what he called his Great Work, The Birds of America, the massive, four-volume compendium of avian art that made him famous.

The Birds of America was a tremendous artistic and ornithological achievement, a product of personal passion and sacrifice. Audubon thought big from the beginning, making his work ambitious in its reach, with 435 engraved images of some 490 species, and impressive in its scale, with each bird depicted size of life. Audubons avian images can seem more real than reality itself, allowing the viewer to study each bird closer and longer than would ever be possible in the field. The visual impact proved stunning at the time, and it continues to be so today.

Although never fully acknowledged, people of colorAfrican Americans and Native Americanshad a part in making that massive project possible. Audubon occasionally relied on these local observers for assistance in collecting specimens, and he sometimes accepted their information about birds and incorporated it into his writings. But even though Audubon found Black and Indigenous people scientifically useful, he never accepted them as socially or racially equal. He took pains to distinguish himself from them. In writing about an expedition in Florida in December 1831, Audubon noted that he set out in a boat with six enslaved Black menhands, as he called themand three white men, his emphasis clearly underscoring the racial divide in the boat and his place on the white side of it.

Audubon also, through his writing, manipulated racial tensions to enhance his notoriety. The tale of The Runawayone of the Episodes about American life he inserted into his 3,000-page, five-volume Ornithological Biography, a companion to Birds of Americaspins the tale of an encounter with a Black man in a Louisiana swamp. Audubon, who had been hunting Wood Storks with his dog, Plato, had a gun, but so did the Black man; after a brief face-off both men put down their weapons. Even as he described the tension easing, Audubon had already hooked into the fears of his readers. Published three years after Nat Turners slave rebellion in 1831, The Runaway presented the most menacing image imaginable for many white peoplethe sudden specter of an armed Black man. Audubon knew how to get peoples attention.

He also knew how to put himself in the most favorable light. The man and his family had escaped slavery and were living in the swamp, and as the tale unfolds, Audubon spent the night at the familys encampmentcompanionably but also quite at their mercy. It was the fugitives, however, who were really most vulnerable. The next morning, Audubon took them back to the plantation of their first master and convinced the planter to buy the enslaved people back from the masters to which the family had been divided and sold. And that was that: Reunited but still enslaved, the Black family was rendered as happy as slaves generally are in that country. (Exactly what happy meant, Audubon did not say.) In the span of a single storytrue or not, and many of Audubons Episodes were notAudubon portrayed himself as both a savior of a fugitive family and a defender of slaveholders claims to human property rights.

There have long been lingering questions about Audubons own racial identity. His birth in Saint-Domingue (now Haiti) to one of his fathers two mistresses on a sugar plantation suggests he may have shared some measure of African descent. The truth of that may be impossible to know for sure even now. Audubon may not have known for sure himself, yet he took care to leave a specific impression.In an essay written for his sons, he described his birth mother as a lovely and wealthy lady of Spanish extraction from Louisiana, who went back to Saint-Domingue with Audubons father and became one of the victims during the ever-to-be-lamented period of negro insurrection on that island. Neither part is true, but both could have been useful to Audubon: Having a European mother killed by Black rebels reinforced a white identity, and in an American society where whiteness proved (and still proves) the safest form of social identity, what more could Audubon need?

Audubon made his place in American culture by creating a self-identity as outsized as his images of birds. Much of that is justified: As an artist he set a bar for realism in nature art that raised the worlds standards and continues to influence artists today. His paintings of birds and other wildlife were remarkablefull of exacting detail and often exciting drama, both of which make his work so vibrant and valuable. Although the veracity of his science has sometimes been called into question, his major written work, Ornithological Biography, remains a valuable resource and a very good read. And he left in his wake a movement of people ardent in their passion for identifying and protecting bird life, including the founders of the first Audubon societies, which took his name long after he died. But if we look at John James Audubon as a figure in history, not as a figure of his own myths, we come away with a truer picture of the man himself.

That is an important exercise, and not only for historians. Audubons Runaway could not escape the long reach of slavery, and neither should heor any of us. In this critical time of reckoning with racism, we must recognize that the institution of slavery in Americas past has a deep connection to institutions in the presentour governments, businesses, banks, universities, and also some of our most respected and beloved organizations. Audubon didnt create the National Audubon Society, but he remains part of its identity. As much as we celebrate his environmental legacy, we need to grapple with his racial legacy. If we could train our binoculars on history, now is the time to do so.

Gregory Nobles is author ofJohn James Audubon: The Nature of the American Woodsman(University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017). He is also a member of the National Audubon Society and two local chapters, Atlanta Audubon and Michigan Audubon.

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A Shimmering Peace: Candles on The Water offers hope on 75th anniversary of nuclear bombings – The Burg News

In these tumultuous times, an event meant to promote understanding among people may be just what your soul needs.

Enter Candles on the Water, an annual program that advocates for peace and harmony by commemorating the bombings of the Japanese cities of Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

This year marks 75 years since the bombings, and a local group plans a program of music, prayer and public proclamations, concluding with a launch of lantern boats into the Susquehanna River at sunset.

On August 6, 1945, a uranium atomic bomb called Little Boy was dropped on Hiroshima. About 140,000 people were killed and thousands of others died within months from burns and radiation sickness. Just three days later, a plutonium bomb called Fat Man was dropped on Nagasaki, where 70,000 were killed.

As a member of Pax Christi, a Catholic organization that rejects war, preparation for war and every form of violence and domination, Ann Marie Judson has been involved with Candles on the Water for about 20 years.

Judson explained that the idea began taking shape in 1982 at a session on nuclear disarmament held at the United Nations. At the time, Mayor Araki of Hiroshima proposed a new program to promote the solidarity of cities toward the abolition of nuclear weapons. Harrisburg was one of the first to sign on. Today, the Mayors for Peace movement totals 7,905 cities in 163 countries and regions.

Judson said that Harrisburg peace activists Deborah Davenport and Milton Lowenthalheld the first event in the 1980s.

Lowenthal was instrumental in Harrisburg becoming a member city of Mayors for Peace, she said.

Judson described the event as an ecumenical effort to help unify people and bring attention to the cause.

It represents solidarity with Hiroshima and Nagasaki and our common desire for the abolition of nuclear weapons, she said.

Judson said that Bill Dallam of Mechanicsburg will address the crowd during the event. Dallam was on site just three weeks after the bombings, she said. As a member of the military, it was his job to measure radiation.

He was told it was a classified, secret mission, she said. They didnt want anybody to know all the damage we caused.

Judson explained that Dallam encouraged his wife, Mary Lou, to paint a depiction of the devastation. The painting reads, Never Again, and has been used on the front Candles on the Water program schedule.

Peace Garden

The Peace Garden is another permanent reminder of the bombings and is located above the eastern bank of the Susquehanna River between Maclay and Emerald streets.

We brought the idea back from Hiroshima after the international conference, said retired Harrisburg pediatrician Dr. Jim Jones.

The two-block area includes three large sculptures inspired by the destruction in Hiroshima and the hope that followed. The sculptures are the work of Dr. Frederick Franck, a writer, artist and oral surgeon who once worked with Dr. Albert Schweitzer in Africa.

Among the sculptures are flowers, trees and plaques containing sayings that promote peace, hope and renewal. A pole among the brightly blooming flowers bears messages of peace written in four languages.

Jones and Judson are thankful that the city provides the water for the Peace Garden and for the hard work of volunteers who are responsible for the upkeep, along with the dedication of organizations like the Physicians for Social Responsibility, which plant 1,200 annuals every spring.

Judson stressed the importance of keeping history in mind as we move forward.

Ive been dedicated to the cause of peace and Candles on the Water for many years because it reminds us that nuclear weapons should never again be used, she said.We are all brothers and sisters on this planet, and the abolition of nuclear weapons is a critical necessity.Never again!

Candles on the Water will take place on Sunday, Aug. 9, at 7 p.m., with attendees meeting in Riverfront Park in Harrisburg across from the John Harris Mansion. Please bring lawn chairs or blankets. For more information, email annmarie512@aol.com.

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A Shimmering Peace: Candles on The Water offers hope on 75th anniversary of nuclear bombings - The Burg News

Should the House of Lords be abolished? My role as a new Labour peer – LabourList

For most of Labours history, our policy has been to abolish the House of Lords or have an elected second chamber. In recent manifestos, we have committed to the creation of an elected Senate of the Nations and Regions. Last weeks colourful dissolution peerage list demonstrates again the necessity of that commitment.

The primary purpose of the Lords is to scrutinise and amend legislation. Linking the appointment of legislators with peerages and having life terms undermines our democracy. Those who defend the Lords argue that the House contains considerable expertise and independent thinking, which would not exist within an elected system. However, as was so clearly displayed last week, it is a system mainly based on patronage.

The Lords is also almost three-quarters male, with the newly published list actually reducing the proportion of women, and predominately white. The chamber is definitely not a reflection of modern Britain. There is surely a way of ensuring both expertise and independence within an elected, representative and accountable chamber.

Labour boycotting the Lords wont bring about its abolition or quicken the pace of reform. The second chamber makes hundreds of amendments to bills every year, often improving the legislation. The current 174-strong Labour peers group regularly make the difference, as many changes to law would not take place without Labours voting strength. We were right to take five places out of the 36 created last week.

In March 2007, I voted to abolish the Lords and when that was defeated for a fully-elected chamber. That vote, won by 337 votes to 224, is the only time the Commons has voted for a wholly-elected second chamber. But turkeys dont vote for Christmas, and the Lords then rejected this proposal. Jeremy Corbyn was right to ask new peers to vote to abolish an unelected Lords whenever the opportunity arises.

If there were no second chamber, restructuring of the Commons would be required with already overstretched MPs having to take on additional scrutiny work. It may be that reform of the second chamber is more practicable than simple abolition. In recent years, Labour has done work mainly behind closed doors on a reformed second chamber as part of a wider new constitutional framework for the UK. The detail of what that would look like needs to be fleshed out with a public debate as to where power should lie.

As a former Scottish MP, I would like see Scotlands rights as a nation enshrined in this new set-up, and a further transfer of power to Scotland as significant as that which took place when the Scottish parliament was created in 1999. Until the Second World War, Labour supported home rule with maximum self-government for Scotland within the UK, and I stand in that tradition. But constitutional change is needed in the rest of the UK, too. Labour must use the experiences of our elected councillors, metro-mayors and others, who will have views as to what powers are needed to deliver economically for communities.

As a Labour peer, I will be there to try to amend legislation, take up human rights cases, and issues and campaigns on behalf of the labour movement. It is an honour to be given the opportunity to do that. But part of that role also must be insisting that we get a legislative system appropriate for a 21st-century democracy and calling for an overhaul of the second chamber.

Katy Clark was Labour MP for North Ayrshire and Arran (2005-2015). She is a former political secretary to Jeremy Corbyn, led the Labour Party democracy review, and was a Labour nominee on the 2019 peers dissolution list.

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Should the House of Lords be abolished? My role as a new Labour peer - LabourList

The Second Act of Social-Media Activism – The New Yorker

Three months of quarantine taught us to live online, so its perhaps unsurprising that it was what we saw online that sent us back onto the streets. On May 25th, the circulation of video footage capturing George Floyds murder by four Minneapolis police officers quickly incited local protests. Three nights later, our feeds streamed with live images of protesters burning Minneapoliss Third Police Precinct. In the course of June, uprisings expanded at unprecedented speed and scalegrowing nationally and then internationally, leaving a series of now iconic images, videos, and exhortations in their wake. Every historic event has its ideal medium of documentationthe novel, the photograph, the televisionand what were witnessing feels like an exceptionally online moment of social unrest.

Indeed, the struggle in the public square has unfolded alongside a takeover of the virtual one. Amid cell-phone footage of protests and toppling statues, the Internet has been further inundated with what we might call activist media. Screenshots of bail-fund donations urging others to match continue to proliferate. Protest guides, generated from years of on-the-ground activist experience, are readily shared over Twitter and Instagram, telling readers how to blur faces in photographs or aid in de-arrests. There are e-mail and phone-call templates, pre-scripted and mass-circulated. Webinars about police abolition now constitute their own subgenre. And city-council meetings, which had already migrated to Zoom because of the pandemic, have come to host the hallowed activist tradition of town-hall agitation. (Well-timed appeals for the police department to suck my dick, it turns out, can be as effective online as off.) As some of Junes uprisings evolve into todays encampments, the long revolutionary summer of 2020made all the longer by quarantinecontinues apace online.

Some of this story may seem familiar. In Twitter and Tear Gas: The Power and Fragility of Networked Protest, from 2017, the sociologist Zeynep Tufekci examined how a digitally networked public sphere had come to shape social movements. Tufekci drew on her own experience of the 2011 Arab uprisings, whose early mobilization of social media set the stage for the protests at Gezi Park, in Istanbul, the Occupy action, in New York City, and the Black Lives Matter movement, in Ferguson. For Tufekci, the use of the Internet linked these various, decentralized uprisings and distinguished them from predecessors such as the nineteen-sixties civil-rights movement. Whereas older movements had to build their organizing capacity first, Tufekci argued, modern networked movements can scale up quickly and take care of all sorts of logistical tasks without building any substantial organizational capacity before the first protest or march.

The speed afforded by such protest is, however, as much its peril as its promise. After a swift expansion, spontaneous movements are often prone to what Tufekci calls tactical freezes. Because they are often leaderless, and can lack both the culture and the infrastructure for making collective decisions, they are left with little room to adjust strategies or negotiate demands. At a more fundamental level, social medias corporate infrastructure makes such movements vulnerable to coptation and censorship. Tufekci is clear-eyed about these pitfalls, even as she rejects the broader criticisms of slacktivism laid out, for example, by Evgeny Morozovs The Net Delusion, from 2011.

Twitter and Tear Gas remains trenchant about how social media can and cannot enact reform. But movements change, as does technology. Since Tufekcis book was published, social media has helped representand, in some cases, helped organizethe Arab Spring 2.0, Frances Yellow Vest movement, Puerto Ricos RickyLeaks, the 2019 Iranian protests, the Hong Kong protests, and what we might call the B.L.M. uprising of 2020. This last event, still ongoing, has evinced a scale, creativity, and endurance that challenges those skeptical of the Internets ability to mediate a movement. As Tufekci notes in her book, the real-world effects of Occupy, the Womens March, and even Ferguson-era B.L.M. were often underwhelming. By contrast, since George Floyds death, cities have cut billions of dollars from police budgets; school districts have severed ties with police; multiple police-reform-and-accountability bills have been introduced in Congress; and cities like Minneapolis have vowed to defund policing. Plenty of work remains, but the link between activism, the Internet, and material action seems to have deepened. Whats changed?

The current uprisings slot neatly into Tufekcis story, with one exception. As the flurry of digital activism continues, there is no sense that this movement is unclear about its aimsabolitionor that it might collapse under a tactical freeze. Instead, the many protest guides, syllabi, Webinars, and the like have made clear both the objectives of abolition and the digital savvy of abolitionists. It is a message so legible that even Fox News grasped it with relative ease. Rachel Kuo, an organizer and scholar of digital activism, told me that this clarity has been shaped partly by organizers who increasingly rely on a combination of digital platforms, whether thats Google Drive, Signal, Messenger, Slack, or other combinations of software, for collaboration, information storage, resource access, and daily communications. The public tends to focus, understandably, on the profusion of hashtags and sleek graphics, but Kuo stressed that it was this back end workan inventory of knowledge, a stronger sense of alliancethat has allowed digital activism to reflect broader concerns and visions around community safety, accessibility, and accountability. The uprisings might have unfolded organically, but what has sustained them is precisely what many prior networked protests lacked: prexisting organizations with specific demands for a better world.

Some of this growth is simply a function of time. It has been seven years since Black Lives Matter was founded. Since then, groups such as the Movement for Black Livesan explicitly abolitionist, anti-capitalist network that includes more than a hundred and fifty organizationshave lent unity and direction to a coalition that was once, perhaps, too diffuse to articulate shared principles. These groups have also become better at using the Internet to frame, formalize, and advance their agenda. As Sarah J. Jackson, Moya Bailey, and Brooke Foucault Welles write in #HashtagActivism, social media provides a digital counterpublic, in which voices excluded from elite media spaces can engage alternative networks of debate. When moments of rupture occur, this counterpublic can more readily make mainstream interventions. Recent discourse about prison and police abolition might be the clearest example of a shift in the Overton window, though Bailey points even to the language that were hearing on television, white supremacy being named for what it is, as unimaginable just a few years ago.

Whats distinct about the current movement is not just the clarity of its messaging, but its ability to convey that message through so much noise. On June 2nd, the music industry launched #BlackoutTuesday, an action against police brutality that involved, among other things, Instagram and Facebook users posting plain black boxes to their accounts. The posts often included the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter; almost immediately, social-media users were inundated with even more posts, which explained why using that hashtag drowned out crucial information about events and resources with a sea of mute boxes. For Meredith Clark, a media-studies professor at the University of Virginia, the response illustrated how the B.L.M. movement had honed its ability to stick to a program, and to correct those who deployed that program navely. In 2014, many people had only a thin sense of how a hashtag could organize actions or establish circles of care. Today, people understand what it means to use a hashtag, Clark told me. They use their own social media in a certain way to essentially quiet background noise and allow those voices that need to connect with each other the space to do so. The #BlackoutTuesday affair exemplified an increasing awareness of how digital tactics have material consequences.

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The Second Act of Social-Media Activism - The New Yorker

‘This is the Negroes’ Jubilee’ – Jamaica Observer

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Emancipation Day is rightly celebrated as one of the most important anniversaries for Jamaicans. Sadly, this year's was not our traditional Augus'1 jubilee style commemoration. Last year this time celebrators had settled into their north coast resort accommodation, done the Saturday night party bit, and booked time out for Caymanas Park, cricket matches, beach outings, and family gatherings.

The West Indies team was struggling against a well-oiled Indian side (sounds familiar), Denbigh was summoning farmers from labour to refreshment, and for many a Red Stripe and a game of dominoes was sufficient to while away the time and reflect, oh so briefly, on the reason for the holiday.

That was last year, 2019. But this year COVID-19 has put paid to all that excitement and everything is now on virtual reality. A great effort has been made to bring the shows into our living rooms, but so much is missing from these events without the crowd excitement.

What a change we have witnessed when, in six months, January to July, a blanket of soberness and containment has curtailed the world's normal behavioural patterns as we seek to shield humanity from the scourge of the coronavirus pandemic.

The celebrations we indulged in last year have been toned down and, although we still danced, we danced with one eye open for the security forces who were placed on anti-COVID-19 alarms and crack down duties.

The Government allowed 'let up' to some extent, but to my mind the almost total abandonment of masks and social distancing which has reached peak during this holiday period makes it obligatory for a return to some of those restrictions, advisories, and guidelines issued by the Government and the World Health Organization at the start of the pandemic.

Comparing the lock down we went through at Easter to the wild abandonment we are revelling in at Emancipation makes one shudder to think that we could be laying ourselves open for the coming of that dreaded second wave we have been warned against.

The practice of wearing masks, washing hands, and social distancing must be followed strictly. We have been through the initial importation, cluster and community stages, and the cycle has turned full circle as, with the reopening of our borders, we are right back into the importation stage.

There is one other stage we don't speak about much, and it's the complacency stage. The belief that, in spite of the increasing numbers (importation), Jamaica is doing so well that we can drop our guard. The complacency stage can be the most dangerous stage of all.

As was said earlier in this column, Prime Minister Andrew Holness has taken on the mandate of leadership and is not letting us down. He has been very much in charge; forthright and decisive.

Minister of Health Dr Christopher Tufton has taken on the responsibility for one of the heaviest burdens ever cast on a minister of government in the history of Jamaica, and continues to do exceedingly well.

Indeed, the latest Bill Johnson polls commissioned by this newspaper have given a vote of excellence to the Government for the job they are doing to protect Jamaica from the effects of the virus.

This vote of confidence must be shared by the unflappable Chief Medical Officer Dr Jacquiline Bisasor-McKenzie, whose style we find to be engaging, comforting, compassionate, and, most importantly, inspires trust.

These three have been leading the fight for Jamaica, supported by Cabinet ministers, medical officers, the Ministry of Health and Wellness, the police, as well as thousands of workers stretched to the max across the country. Altogether they have earned the confidence of the people they lead.

Unfortunately, with an election prognosis now turning up the volume, it's going to be almost impossible to keep politics out of this health crisis. The ungracious and unworthy politicking that has crept in can be a diversion from the real issues that face us.

We simply cannot play politics with coronavirus, and where it has happened and is likely to continue to happen we must rein it in. Please don't play games with life and death.

Our big brother, the USA, has been involved in some amount of turmoil in that regard as it too prepares for elections in November. The excitement and enthusiasm around conventions and public rallies have been crowded out by the coronavirus outbreak and coloured by the Black Lives Matter movement spurred by the killing of George Floyd.

America has only itself to blame for allowing racism to play such a dominant role in the decision-making process to select a Government in the world's largest democracy. And, in 2020. A lot of battles have been fought and won down that road. The Civil War 1861-65, which ended in victory for the Northern states and the abolishment of slavery, the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which legally ended the segregation that had been institutionalised by the Jim Crow laws, the decline of the Ku Klux Klan, the civil rights movement, and the historic march on Washington in 1964, all of which were important milestones on the way to eradicating racism in America.

But those accomplishments and seminal victories have not proven to be decisive enough. A 2013 report published by the Economic Policy Institute, which assessed the progress made by the original March on Washington, contended that the attainment of civil rights alone cannot transform people's quality of life unless accompanied by economic (and social) justice. It pointed out that much of the primary goals of all these historic victories listed above (housing, integrated education, and widespread employment at equal wages) have not been met. They further argued that, although legal advances were made, black people still live in concentrated areas of poverty, where they receive inferior education and suffer from widespread unemployment; hence, the unsettled, restless situation in America and the anger and pain now manifesting itself in mass protests all over the United States.

I was surprised to learn that there is no national public holiday declared in the USA to mark Emancipation. The District of Columbia observes a holiday on April 16 to mark the anniversary of the signing of Emancipation Act. Elsewhere in the United States, the emancipation of slaves is celebrated in sections of several states and on different days, including Florida (May 20), Puerto Rico (March 22), Texas (June 19), and in Georgia (Saturday closest to May 29), Mississippi (May 8) and Kentucky (August 8).

In contrast, Jamaica has long recognised August 1 as a day for national celebration. And even when Emancipation Day, for a while, has been subsumed by the August 6 Independence celebrations 1962 to 1998 Jamaicans still continued to honour and observe August 1 in communities all over the country with sporting tournaments, parties, fairs and picnics.

The holiday is more than just a welcome break from work when one can lounge around and relax in preparation for Independence Day. For Jamaicans, the day is a very important date in our history as a people, as it represents the time when our forebears were 'freed' from the shackles of chattel slavery.

On this day, August 2, 2020, let us spare a sobering thought for what took place in Jamaica on the night of July 31, 1834.

On that night, 186 years ago, thousands of enslaved Africans flocked to places of worship all over Jamaica to give thanks for the abolition of slavery.

In 1834 many of the slaves could still recall the time when they were uprooted from their peaceful villages and forcefully taken to a port of departure, where they awaited the arrival of a slaver.

The journey to the West Indies was horrible. The ships were overcrowded and unsanitary, resulting in the breakout of various diseases. Many of them died. Others thought least likely to recover were chained, ankle by ankle, and thrown overboard, weighed down with cannonballsalive.

Those who endured the journey were then forced on to the plantations to begin their sentences of slavery, with multiple whippings, torture, and instances of sexual abuse. Many were killed for daring to seek freedom. The enslaved African was now mere chattel.

So here comes freedom in 1834 from all these unspeakable horrors. Their joy was not to be just another Red Stripe beer, a day at the track, or a Sunsplash night at the park. This was genuine, heartfelt, deeply emotional joy and thanksgiving celebrations: That overwhelming feeling of thanksgiving to the Almighty God who had intervened in the machinations of man and had finally set the captives free.

The Emancipation Day holiday, as we celebrate it in 2020, can never fully pay tribute to, or recall the passions and the immensity of the feelings that must have overwhelmed the Africans who, that night, were to hear the proclamation of liberty to the captives, and experience for themselves the opening of the prison doors to them that were bound.

And can you imagine how our forefathers and mothers celebrated? And did they not have more cause for natural joy than we have today? Those former slaves, yes, our 'owna' family, set the pace for grand times to be had by all when they left church that night to spill out into the streets for joyous celebrations and thanksgiving.

Queen Victoria gi wi free, tiday fus a Augus', tenky Massa, they sang, as the women paraded around the rural neighbourhoods in their tailored petticoats with tashan lace edging. The Bruckins party songs and dances which have been handed down to the present generation were the highlights of any celebratory gathering: Jubilee, Jubilee, this is the year of Jubilee...

We are fortunate to get a first-hand description of what took place in the churches that night from a parson, Reverend Henry Bleby, who was an eyewitness to the event, and who actually conducted the service of thanksgiving and freedom in one of the churches in his charge. From an address which Rev Bleby gave to the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society in 1858 we glean how he remembered, in detail, every second of the service, every sob, every gasp, and, at the end of the night, every soulful prayer that sang and ran through the congregation.

Sirs, he told his audience, I was there when slavery was abolished. I saw the monster die. This day, 24 years ago, I stood up late at night, in a very large church (unnamed), and the aisles were crowded, and the gallery stairs, and the communion place, and the pulpit stairs were all crowded, and there were thousands of persons looking in. This was at 10 o'clock at night, on the 31st of July.

I took my text from Leviticus 25: 10. By and by, the midnight hour approached. When it was within two minutes of the first of August, I requested all the people to kneel down, as befitting the solemnity of the hour, and engage in silent prayer to God.

A moment of the highest drama was approaching.

By and by, the clock began to strike: It was the knell of slavery. It was the stroke which proclaimed liberty to 800 souls. And, Sirs, what a burst of joy rolled over that mass of people when the clock struck, and they were slaves no longer.

Over at the Baptist church in Falmouth a similar procession of time in motion. As the clock started to strike the first chime of midnight, Rev William Knibb said quietly, The hour is at hand, the monster is dying. There was silence. Then when the church bell outside struck midnight, he shouted: The monster is dead: The Negro is free!

At Rev Bleby's church there was also a heavy silence that had gripped the congregation. Then when the midnight hour struck a burst of joy rolled over that mass of people as they realised they were slaves no longer. He told them to rise from their knees, And, Sirs, it was really affecting to see, in one corner, a mother, with her little one whom she had brought with her, clasp her baby to her bosom. And there was an old, white-headed man, embracing a daughter. And, here again, would be a husband congratulating his wife.

This is what you call unspeakable feelings. One great, large, significant, unforgettable moment in history. Outside the churches the people gathered to bury the chain shackles all over the countryside.

Rev Bleby, again, takes the platform. I cannot tell you the feelings which with which those people, just emerging from freedom, shouted. And they literally shouted the hymn which was sung in the church that night:

Send the glad tidings o'er the sea,

His chains are broken, the slave is free

This is the Negro's jubilee...

Lance Neita is a public relations consultant and historian. Send comments to the Jamaica Observer or to lanceneita@hotmail.com.

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'This is the Negroes' Jubilee' - Jamaica Observer